


The Emperor's Curse

by BenSoloLovedFirst



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Armitage Hux Being An Asshole, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Badass Rey, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Ben Solo is a Mess, Betrayal, Blood Magic, Curse Breaking, Curses, Dark Magic, Double Agents, Dragons, Empress Rey, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Evil Plans, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Visions, Forced Marriage, Genocide, Good and Evil, Healers, Hostage Situations, I really do hope you like it, Jedi, Kidnapping, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Lies, Light Angst, Magic, Mentioned Han Solo, Mentioned Leia Organa, Planet Naboo (Star Wars), Please be gentle this is my first fic in 7 years, Plot Twists, Protective Kylo Ren, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey & Rose Tico Friendship, Rey Palpatine, Rough Sex, Sith Code, Slow Romance, Some Humor, Spy Armitage Hux, Tatooine (Star Wars), The Force, Top Kylo Ren, Transformation, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Rey (Star Wars), Wandless Magic, War, magic is a double-edged sword
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenSoloLovedFirst/pseuds/BenSoloLovedFirst
Summary: Emperor Palpatine has ruled over the land of Naboo and most of its neighboring kingdoms for over four decades. Naboo has been in a ten-year war with the neighboring kingdom of Tatooine, and it has taken a toll on the populace. People have begun to speak of rebellion, and look to Rey with hope for the future. Aware of this, Palpatine hatches a manifold plan. His mantle will be passed to his granddaughter Rey when she marries into the noble family of Hux. If she doesn't comply, her fate will be worse than death.A boring political marriage angers the bored young woman, and she plans her escape from the kingdoms. During what is to be her farewell speech preceding her assisted escape, Kylo Ren, former Captain of the First Order of Ren of Tatooine now cursed as a dragon, kidnaps Rey as his hostage. The Emperor and his kingdoms will get her back only when the curse is reversed.But what happens if the beauty gets to know the beast? Can she restore him to his life as a human? Can he show her the errors of the past? An AU Reylo/GingerRose fic set in a fantasy land where the Force is now Jedi/Sith Magic and the Jedi Knights used to be dragons.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55





	1. Prologue - Arranged Marriages and Handmaidens

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! This is my first Reylo fic and first fic since high school... a very long time ago. The idea for this came from a prompt @reylo_prompts on twitter. I wanted to write a Skyrim AU Reylo fic but this is probably even better.
> 
> I have a decent outline of the story, but I will benefit greatly from feedback!
> 
> So at this point it shouldn't need to be stated but I'll state it anyway: this is an AU in semi-medieval, semi-modern times. There is no mention of the galaxy, space, planets, or travel through any of them. Everything happens on one unnamed planet, and the planets have all been modified into other kingdoms or cities. The Force is more like magic here, however there will be elements of the Dyad, Force powers and such. There won't be Force ghosts, for this reason. And the Jedi and Sith aren't quite the same - they're more like good wizards and evil wizards, but even that is simplifying things a little. Also, using Jedi magic isn't surprising as most people are aware of it. It isn't taboo or looked upon as foolish sorcery. Most people see Jedi magic as healing and protective. Most people are also unaware of Sith magic's existence.
> 
> So: no space, no force ghosts, Force powers are magic, and futuristic technology including droids is pretty much nonexistent. 
> 
> As I write this I'm working out the lore even more than I already have, so if you have suggestions, please share! You can also contact me @ayusuikuu on Twitter or fountainofrandomness.tumblr.com

“...And _that_ is why the Naboo pear is our most priceless export.”

Two pairs of feet trudged through the tall wet grass of the fields outside the palace. The moon shone high in the sky, and bathed the couple in a cool and misty blue.

He stopped suddenly at the sole, humongous tree in the field – at least a thousand years old – and heaved his shoulders.

Her mind had numbed from his expansive prattle about the economy of the Empire, but she was taken by his sudden quietness, and his form that appeared to be... trembling before her.

“Armitage, what's the matter?”

Suddenly he spun around and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her close. He was inches from her face.

“What if I told you that your life is in grave danger, and you are being watched all day long?”

“Wha--”

“Would you leave tonight if I told you to?”

Rey smacked his hand hard and he recoiled enough for her to escape his advance. She scowled at Armitage Hux, and soothed her wrist. “Have you gone mad? Or are you telling me in a roundabout way that this political marriage is too much for you?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, staring off into the horizon. “Such a fiery one.” He locked his gaze on her. “Did you expect to find marriage any other way, with that tongue of yours?”

Rey felt her hands ball up. “Don't avoid the question! What are you up to, Hux?”

He shook his head. “I can see you're too stubborn to believe anything I could tell you. It doesn't matter.” He turned away and waved a hand as he departed. “Don't stay up too late, Your Highness. Wouldn't want you to have baggy eyes for the wedding.”

She made an obscene gesture at his back and stomped off toward the palace.

The dozen night guards on duty all bowed uniformly as she passed them on the wide stairs, and gave no indication that they had been watching the night's drama unfold before them.

As Rey passed the throne room, her grandfather feebly raised a hand to fetch her attention, but she just shouted, “Goodnight, grandfather,” and ascended the stairs.

What was going on. What... why... Why had he acted so differently, so suddenly? Armitage had been in favor of this marriage from the moment it was announced in the season of rain. He was of noble birth, but he still stood to gain the world if he married the woman who would become the Empress of Naboo.

Yet instead of pretending like everything was right as rain between them, and that they had actually chosen to be betrothed, tonight he had shown something she didn't think him capable of possessing.

Fear. And a disturbing knowledge of food exports.

With the reason for it still unclear, she felt her chest tighten in her own anxiety. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found her way onto the chaise longue in her room. Rey stared out at the moon and wondered, if she thought about it with enough focus, she could be any planet but here.

She felt so stuck, trapped. She had no life beyond the basic duties of an heiress to the throne. But she felt she was destined for something greater. So Rey trained harder than she had to when fencing, and she paid greater attention to her lessons in Jedi magic than she did when she was an adolescent.

Rey was glad she did. She felt something was about to converge with her. Every day it got closer. Every day, she felt a stillness inside her, heard her breath as if it were the only sound in the world. She couldn't explain the phenomena, but it only furthered her intentions to run away.

That was her plan. As long as she was under her grandfather's thumb, she couldn't find the answers she needed. And worse yet, if she married, she would be thrown into a journey of diplomacy and royal visits that she never asked for and wasn't ready for.

Sometimes she just wished she was Rey Nobody, from Nowhere. It would make this process of self-discovery so much easier.

A rap at the door stirred her from her reverie, and she heard herself beckon the caller forth.

Callers. It was her handmaidens, Rose and Kaydel. Rey smiled faintly and beckoned them to her. They began to tend to her hair and slightly muddy shoes, feet and legs. “How was your day, girls? Hopefully better than mine.” She sighed and leaned her head back. She _was_ genuinely interested, however – her handmaidens were the closest thing she had to friends. And they were all more comfortable with each other than a future empress and her ladies-in-waiting should be.

Kaydel's lip twitched and she rolled her eyes slightly. “I think mister Dameron is stalking me.”

Rose, setting aside Rey's muddy boots, snorted and laughed.

Kaydel and Rey turned to her with bemused expressions. “You're laughing _why?_ ”

Rose shook her head quickly and covered her stupid smile. “No, no, it's just... are you _sure_ you broke up because of commitments?”

Kaydel's brow furrowed further. “Yes... Come on, Rose, what is going on?”

“Okay, okay... I saw mister Dameron with Finn of Theed by the market fountain, and, well, I think he's committed to more than just plenty of _women_.”

The realization dawned first on Rey, then Kaydel. They were speechless a moment, before Rey giggled. “That's kind of cute.”

The handmaidens looked at her oddly.

“I mean, sorry, Kaydel, obviously, but... he's just too much of a flirt and Finn is so reclusive and quiet... I'd definitely like to see something come of this.”

Rose and Rey exchanged side-eyes. They were on the same page. Kaydel, however, had had enough.

“Alright, I'm dismissing myself for the night. I don't think my face can feel any hotter without it melting.”

“Kaydel!” But the door was already closed and footsteps echoed down the stairs. Rey sighed, and looked to her lone handmaid. “Did we go too far?”

Rose stopped scraping the mud from Rey's boots, raising her brows. “Who's we? I just delivered the news, you're the one who went ahead and turned it into a man's fairy tale.”

They both laughed lightly. Rey was going to miss this.

“Hey,” she said, looking suddenly down at her. She pat the space next to her on the lounge.

Rose hesitated, but ultimately joined her. They had been together since they were both young girls, and the lines of servant and mistress were blurred beyond recognition between them.

“What's wrong? You don't look so well.”

“It's because I'm not.”

“...Is it the marriage?”

Rey rolled her head to look at Rose. “What else?”

Rose cleared her throat. “Mister Hux may be boring, but I think you'll... be happy.”

Rey laughed mirthlessly. “It's an arranged marriage. There's no happiness in it. Especially not now.”

“Are you talking about the dreams?”

“Yes, but it's becoming more than that. And I'm terrified. And I can't be married if I expect to find out what's woken up inside me.”

“...You sound like one of those books you read.”

Rey made a face. “Regardless. The plan goes forward. Tomorrow, after my 'unplanned' speech.”

Rose nodded, and then cast her gaze down to the floor. “I've arranged for transport to be ready and waiting just behind the wedding carriage. Just jump the twenty feet from the bluff, land inside, and give the word.”

They sat in silence. It was what Rey knew she had to do, but it pained her to think of the things she'd leave behind. Rose, Kaydel, Bebe, the motherly palace chef. The city she grew up in, and the marketplace she loved to visit just to see the foreigners from other kingdoms and the strange wares they had to peddle.

She was about to become one such foreigner. It was simultaneously thrilling and heartbreaking.

“Why did the people have to place their hopes in me? If they didn't all act as though I'm the one to stop the ten-years war, I wouldn't feel so guilty about leaving.”

“I don't know. Everyone has their own reason, including me. You're the first Palpatine in decades to care about the populace. To leave the palace and interact with everyone as if they were nothing more than... subjects to tax.”

“But I'm leaving them, Rose. I'm leaving them to selfishly go on a walkabout and extinguish their hope.”

Rose had been absent-mindedly braiding Rey's hair, but stopped and straigthened herself up. “Look at me.”

Rey did, trying her best to smile at her truest friend.

“Rose of the fallen House of Tico is here to tell you to follow your damn heart.”

“But at what cost? Will the people of Naboo still welcome me back with open arms?”

Rose smiled widely. “Without a doubt. No matter who you marry, no matter when you come back, I'm sure everyone will be glad. Until then, Emperor Palpatine has things under control. The war's supposed to be ending soon, and we've had a great year for crops--”

“Okay, I get it.”

“No matter how long it takes, this is your home. You're going out to figure yourself out, so you know what's best for you, right? Well, when you know what's best for yourself, you're a better judge at what's best for everyone else in your life. You'll be able to save the ones you love.”

Rey hugged Rose suddenly, and the girl wrapped her tight in her own bear hug. “I'm going to miss you so much.”

“Me too, Rose. If... If I don't see Kaydel tomorrow, will you please give her this note?”

Rose accepted the envelope and nodded. “Absolutely. Now, get some sleep. You've got a wedding to escape.”

Rey gladly bade goodnight to her friend. Her eyes were drooping and a yawn worked its way out, long and loud. Perhaps it was all the fresh night air and walking, but she was too sleepy to do anything but find her bed and roll into it.

And as her eyes closed tight and her mind left for the world of dreams, that vision of red and blue, of fighting and sinister laughter once again played itself across the landscape of her sleep.

For once, she could make out the person she was fighting against. It was her grandfather.

As she dreamed of the glorious fight against her own kin, a shadowy figure passed across the breadth of the full moon, watching her closely.


	2. Ceremony, Interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nuptials between Armitage Hux and Lady Rey Palpatine are almost underway when something outside even Rey's designs interrupts everyone's plans...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one, but I had to introduce you properly to Grandpappy Palpy, but I also wanted to introduce Kylo the Dragon, finally. I can't wait to tell this story!

Rey woke with a start. Her dream was terrifying. Why would she fight against her grandfather like that? Moreover, why did he seem so... wretched?

It was just a dream, she kept reminding herself. With Rose and Kaydel dismissed for the morning-- Rose busy working on the escape plan, and Kaydel safely at home, uninvolved in this mess –Rey tended to her ablutions for the first time in many months.

She spent a good time staring into her own eyes in her vanity mirror. The power growing inside of her, she could feel it, and it frightened her. She knew it was for the best that she leave and figure everything out, away from the people she cared about. She didn't know what was happening to her, but she didn't want anyone to get hurt.

She knew of the old Jedi magic myths, and how some capable of using it transcended their humanity and became powerful embodiments of the magic itself. They were one with the magic. They could use it without thinking.

Rey hoped that this was all that was happening, but she was terrified by how strong and unfamiliar she was feeling deep inside. Was becoming one with the magic supposed to feel this raw and untamed?

She brushed her hair and arranged it neatly in braids, one long braid down the back and two framing her face. She threw together an outfit of gauzy wraps and layers of swishing fabric with slacks underneath.

The wedding was still a few hours away. She had plenty of time to change into her royal tunic before then.

A knock at the door startled her. “Come in.”

A guard stood in the doorway, at attention. “Your ladyship, the Emperor awaits you in the throne room,” he announced with a salute.

Rey nodded. “Thank you. You may leave.”

Grandfather... she felt a bit of remorse. She knew how much this marriage meant to the stability of Naboo and the peace it would bring to the populace to know that the future Empress was ready to begin her role as soon as necessary. The populace who believed in her.

* * *

Grandfather was going to hate her for this, but she didn't care. And what he didn't know wasn't going to hurt him.

Rey exhaled shakily as she entered the throne room. Just because she was confident about her plan, it didn't exactly make her confident around her grandfather.

She strode forward to the throne, and bowed slightly to him. “You called for me, Grandfather?”

What followed was the biggest surprise she had ever had in her life. She would never forget this moment as the time that her relationship between her last living family member changed forever.

Rey felt her legs lift off the ground, and an invisible vice clamped around her neck. She sputtered and choked as she was raised higher into the air. Her eyes, blurry with tears, found those of her grandfather. He was smiling, but not in the way she was accustomed.

More like the way she had seen in her dream.

“I know, child, what you have been planning.”

So many thoughts were already racing in her mind. What was this? Was this some kind of powerful Jedi magic she had yet to learn? Was her grandfather really hurting her? Why would he? ...And how could he know what she had barely given breath to? She communicated primarily with Rose about the escape via encoded letters.

Suddenly, she fell to the ground in a rush, and landed hard on her knees. She heard them crack on the carpeted marble below, and sharp pain shot up and down her legs. Rey clambered to a sitting position, and looked slowly, shakily up at her grandfather the Emperor.

His eyes were glowing amber, and a sinister smile twisted his lips. “I sense the fear in you, just as I sensed the desperation and fear you have had for many a month.” He gently lifted a finger, and Rey was lifted to her feet. She wobbled on her weakened legs.

“There is nothing to fear, child,” he soothed, but his voice was tainted with a darkness Rey couldn't comprehend. “So long as you marry Armitage Hux.”

Rey stared him down with fiery yet frightened eyes. “It matters so much that you'd try to kill me. Why?”

The Emperor chortled. “Oh, I would never kill you, dear child. You're my contingency plan, after all.”

Rey's heart dropped. What? So much was happening, she couldn't even process her own thoughts. Her grandfather was always a bit scary when it came to politics, but she had never seen this side to him before. Let alone seen this kind of malice, directed her way.

“C—contingency plan? What is that supposed to mean, grandfather?”

He shifted in the throne, leaning lazily to the side. “I need you to marry Sir Hux so I may gain access to his family secrets. I am much too weak to probe his mind.”

He didn't answer the question.

“And if I refuse?”

“My dear, even if you could, you would not live to see your freedom.”

His eyes glowed amber-yellow again, and sparks danced at his fingertips. Rey swallowed as she watched this display of... some kind of magic.

“I'll see to it that you marry. If you don't, I'll use the power of the Sith to take your life and leave this decrepit husk of mine.”

“Sith...?” Rey shook her head. “I don't understand, grandfather!”

“There are many things you have to learn. I will teach you in due time. For now, know this: the power of Jedi magic is a mere folly compared to the raw strength of the Sith magic.”

His eyes returned to their normal dark, if milky, color, and he beckoned for the guards. Two troopers filed uniformly into the room, and stopped at either side of Rey. She glanced about her nervously, and as if they noticed her anxiety, they grabbed her by the arms.

“Take her to her chambers, and make sure she doesn't leave until the ceremony in the morning.”

They bowed, and carted Rey off unceremoniously from the room. Palpatine chuckled as he watched his young progeny, frightful-eyed, disappear from the throne room.

* * *

Just as she did every day, Captain Phasma of the royal guard reported to Emperor Palpatine on the eighth hour. She knelt before him, and gave him a report of the day's events.

“Rise.”

She bowed her head, and rose to her feet.

“What do you make of Lady Rey's intentions to flee?” His voice was casual, as if the topic was nothing more than idle gossip.

Phasma titled her head ever so slightly. “Permission to speak freely, your Imperial Majesty?”

“Of course.”

Phasma removed her helmet, her short blond hair falling neatly into place. A smirk played across her lips. “Your grandchild is of no concern. We've intercepted every coded message she has sent between that handmaiden of hers. Every plot and plan she has set up to escape has either been dealt with, or will be when the time comes tomorrow.” She contained a chuckle. “There _will_ be no escaping the ceremony. His Majesty needn't fear.”

It was the emperor's turn to laugh. “You underestimate my granddaughter, I'm afraid.”

Phasma's stoic face twitched slightly. “Sir?”

“Double the guards tomorrow. Make sure she is never unescorted. And if she tries to run, cut her down. But bring her to me alive.”

* * *

Rey was all but shoved into her chambers, and snarled at the guards who forced her in. “You'll answer for complicity in his plans someday!” She shouted, but the heavy wooden door was already slammed in her face.

She sighed shakily as she sat on her bed. Her grandfather knew everything about her plan to escape. He had designs on the marriage that went further than simple political gains, that she knew. She was... to be some kind of puppet in a grand scheme. At least, that's what it felt like.

As Rey folded herself into a ball on her duvet, staring with teary, frightened eyes at the wide moon, she ran through the word in her mind. Trying to remember if she had ever heard it before.

Sith.

It sounded so... terrifying. She spoke it aloud, and a feeling of darkness overwhelmed her. She scrunched her legs more tightly to her chest. Fear wasn't in her overall nature, but this was a magic she had never known. Violent, powerful, and aggressive. It was markedly void of the calm, peaceful and empowering feelings that the Jedi magic embodied.

Her whole life had changed since the announcement of the nuptials, but it felt completely overturned by that single encounter with her grandfather.

There was so much she didn't know about magic, and it frightened her.

She could feel the darkness of it inside her as well, and that scared her even more.

She hoped she never knew its power.

* * *

Her thoughts and worries were soon swallowed up by the sweet respite of sleep. It was a fitful rest, and it seemed to last an eternity.

She was having that strange dream again, and she was more lucid than she had ever been. It almost felt like she was actually living it.

The feeling of his strong back muscles rippling in tension against her shoulder blades. Her slight shiver as she felt him shift into a battle stance.

Their breathing the only noise. Labored and haggard. Inhaling and exhaling, a song of physical and emotional toil.

Her heart heaving with anxiety, and... something else.

She clenched her hands tightly around a sword glowing with enchantments. From the corner of her eye, she could see his weapon raised and glowing, too.

As they parted toward the waves of armed men surrounding them, she glanced back. She never did see what he looked like.

A cloak of the deepest black swirled in time to his lunges, swaying around his tall figure. Raven hair cascaded in impossibly perfect waves around his face. His sword struck true, and for an instant, his hair parted his face to reveal a scar.

She felt herself gasp, and the immersion broke. Suddenly her presence as an invader and not participant of this dream was made known.

As the man in black turned to look back at her, she woke up.

Daylight poured across her room and the feeling of safety and comfort from, of all things, that violent dream, escaped her immediately.

The ceremony was probably a few hours away. Rose was already waiting for her on the chaise longue.

Rey remembered the night before. Her grandfather. The same one she fought against in her dream. The one who choked her, threatened her.

Rey shook her head. It wouldn't matter in a little while. She would be gone. She had to be gone.

But what had he said about... taking her body? To replace his “husk”?

She balled her fists. Never before had she felt so powerless, and on the day that she was to take her freedom in her own hands.

* * *

Swelling fanfare greeted Rey as she descended the wide palace stairs in her gown. She couldn't hear it over her own thoughts and nervousness, though. It sounded tinny and muffled compared to the plan that she constantly ran through her mind. Speech. Run. Jump. Escape. Make sure to aim for the second carriage.

It was simple, but knowing her grandfather was anticipating her every move, she ran it through her mind so she wouldn't make any misstep. Now more than ever, she couldn't afford a mistake or waste any second.

The guards felt unusually close to her as they escorted her toward the balcony overlooking the crowd. She rolled her eyes, stumbling a little in her two-inch heeled slippers. Of course her grandfather had tightened security. They were being a little obvious, though. She had to wonder what the crowd of commoners below thought of such a tight escort. She wondered if any of them felt her fear, sensed her inner cries for escape.

She reached the stone railing and gripped it tightly. Rey gave a smile of genuine warmth to the populace below. She loved them dearly. Many of them were former school mates from many years ago, when she wasn't privately tutored. Many of them she knew from her escapades at the marketplace. Several others were people she just passed on the street every day and waved to. But she knew every face, and almost every name. She wondered if anyone else in the palace could say the same.

It hurt to do this to them, but there was no turning back. She couldn't live the life her grandfather was apparently orchestrating for her.

“My dear citizens of the kingdoms of Naboo. Locals, and brave travelers from neighboring Tatooine and Coruscant. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here today to witness an important event in my life. I hope today will be a day we will all look back upon favorably, and with great joy.”

Rey stopped to take a shaky breath. She spotted Armitage in the crowd—not too difficult, seeing as he had a front row seat. He wasn't looking at her, however. Oddly enough, he was staring at the line of carriages to the side of the palace bluff. Her escape route, in other words. He cradled his chin in his thumb and forefinger, and she couldn't put a name to the odd expression on his face.

She gave a slight shake of her head, and resumed her speech.

Or, rather, she attempted to. But her words trailed out of her mouth in an incoherent string as the clouds above darkened.

No, not the clouds... The sky, the sun, was blotted out by an enormous figure, swooping in and hovering above the field and palace.

It was a dragon. Immense, black, and with eyes that burned red. Its body was a mass of jagged scales, which rose to meet a spiked spine and battle-mace tail.

But... this was impossible. Dragons had been extinct for a little over forty years, after the great purge her grandfather had ordered.

But before Rey could further parse what in Naboo was actually happening, the dragon dove straight for her. She closed her eyes and screamed as he swept her into the air, cradling her in his massive hind claws like his next meal.

She stopped screaming as the talons suddenly wrapped more tightly around her, threatening to puncture her in several places.

And then it spoke.

“ _PEOPLE OF NABOO!”_ The dragon bellowed. His—his?--voice was gravelly and booming, and noticeably void of an imperial accent like most of the deceased elder dragons had.

“ _I IMPLORE YOU TO LOOK UPON THAT BEING WHICH YOU CALL EMPEROR, AND SEARCH HIS SOUL. FOR HE IS NOT THE MAN YOU BELIEVE HIM TO BE. ASK YOURSELVES WHY DOES HE RULE OVER YOU FROM BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, AND WHY YOU TRUST HIM AND HIS GRANDDAUGHTER WITH YOUR LIVES WHEN THE TEN YEAR WAR WITH THE FIRST ORDER OF REN HAS CONTINUED WITHOUT ANY PEACE TALKS! ASK YOURSELF, WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM THIS WAR!_ ”

Rey felt herself nodding in agreement, of all things. She shook her head and snapped to attention. She scanned the crowd below. She could see people already fleeing, some stood and immobilized by shock and fright. Armitage was standing en guarde, his saber at the ready. Thankfully, Rose and Kaydel were nowhere to be seen.

But her grandfather had joined the crowd, and stood a short distance from Armitage.

He was smiling up at the dragon, as if this were nothing but the merest folly. That sinister smile from her dreams.

The dragon grunted, almost as if in response to this taunting look, and continued:

“ _YOU ALL LOOK UPON ME AS A BEAST, A CREATURE OF UNNATURAL EXISTENCE. BUT I WAS ONCE A HUMAN MAN. I DARED TO SPEAK MY CONCERNS AGAINST YOUR DEAR EMPEROR, AND THIS IS HOW HE ANSWERED MY PLEAS! HE HAS CURSE-D ME WITH THE FORBIDDEN SITH MAGIC OF OLD TO PREVENT ME FROM ACTING AGAINST HIM!_ ”

There was that word again. Sith.

It was forbidden? Rey felt the fear in her chest grow, and she lay even more still in the dragon's grasp, eyeing the razor-sharp claws just inches away with anger and disgust. Last night she felt so powerless. Today she felt incompetent and without any control whatsoever.

But even as she silently cursed this dragon who dare interrupt her escape, she heeded his words. Everything was starting to fall into place, make sense.

Her grandfather was no ordinary emperor. No ordinary human being. This dragon, captor or not, was confirming so many things that she now knew about Emperor Palpatine. She wondered why she was lucky enough to live this long without having Sith magic used upon her. All the times she acted out, cursed him out, hated him for being her only family. She felt suddenly scared of her whole life. At any moment, she could have been changed into a beast, or worse...

“ _YOUR EMPEROR, SHEEV PALPATINE, IS A GREAT FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH! IF YOU WILL NOT HEED MY WORDS, YOU WILL HEED MY ACTIONS! UNTIL I AM FREE OF THIS CURSE, YOUR LADY REY WILL BE MY HOSTAGE!”_

“I'm nobody's hostage, you beast!” She forgot herself for a moment and kicked at one of his talons. She cut her arm against his claws in doing so, and yelped at the searing pain as blood poured from her wound.

He didn't even flinch. She grew woozy from the blood loss, and collapsed back down onto his talons.

Several arrows pierced the air in a wave of fire, but fell flat against the dragon's scaly armor. Below, Hux and several others were preparing a trebuchet.

Rey squinted, scanning the crowd for Palpatine. With all her energy, she focused her eyes upon him.

She gasped. The sparks of magic at his fingertips that she had witnessed the previous night was nothing compared to his current display of power.

Bolts of branching lightning seized forth from his hands at the dragon, and he laughed maliciously as he struck at the dragon's head. The dragon grunted, but was otherwise unmoved.

The crowd below, however, had been sent into a panic. More people fled, while still others stood and stared agape at their leader, who was proving the dragon's point and wielding unearthly power at his literal fingertips. Those who had weapons raised them with wary resolve, and began to approach the Emperor.

As if he could sense their presence, he whirled impossibly fast to face them, hands still aglow with blue bolts. Instead of aiming at the peasants before him, however, he took aim at the large trees behind the area cordoned off for the ceremony. He let loose wave after wave of magic until the trees cracked like several twigs under the sheer power of the lightning, and fell in unison upon the populace.

Rey felt a surge of pain in her mind as their lives were snuffed out, and tears streamed down her face before she could think to react. She could hear their last thoughts as they all died beneath the crushing weight of the trees.

The trees smoked, then burst into flame from the torrent of lightning, and a massive fire soon spread across the field Rey had only yesterday taken a stroll upon with Armitage.

Rey watches as, amidst the flames and ruin, her grandfather simply... walks leisurely toward the palace. The captain of the guard gave one last look at the dragon, then followed the squad accompanying Emperor Palpatine up the palace stairs. Bodies fell left and right, and Palpatine pushed them aside accordingly with effortless flicks of the wrist.

Rey screamed in pain and fright as the dragon suddenly took flight, carrying her far off from the capitol of Naboo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some lore is trickled in here! I'm excited to introduce the dragons and Sith magic. Don't get too excited though, because this is the only dragon we're going to meet ;) And there's only one person who uses Sith magic. Still, I'm having fun, and I hope you are, too!
> 
> What could Hux have meant in the prologue, though? He seemed to know something bad was going to happen... Stay tuned for an interval chapter with your favorite ginger and his mysterious confidant!
> 
> Chapter two should be incoming next week, I will update this chapter if/when I see mistakes. I just want to get it out here so you guys know I'm still working on it!


	3. Not Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, and comes face-to-face with her captor.

Droplets of water tickled her ear in a steady drip. She could heard the water echoing loudly around her, but her eyelids felt like leaden slabs upon her. Rey could barely even move as she felt the stirring of wakefulness.

Her arm was in searing, flaming pain, and a foggy recollection of a dragon... and her grandfather...

She tried to sit up all at once, but the tenderness of her arm caused her to collapse on her side, and yelp out in anguish.

Rey took in her surroundings. She was in some sort of cave. The dim light of dusk through the sheets of rain outside told her as much, for there was no other way to see.

That dragon-- the one who claimed he had been human once – he had kidnapped her from the wedding she had herself planned to flee. Was this really happening? So many unbelievable memories from just the prior day flooded her mind, and it was hard to accept them as anything other than a vivid nightmare.

She pushed herself to her knees first, using her good arm to roll upward. The hard floor below scraped against her sore legs, but it was a fleeting pain compared to the angry burning of the slash across her arm.

She had to tend to it, or she'd lose it. She squinted around her, and into the vast darkness beyond. There was no sign of any dragon.

Rey sighed, and raised herself to her feet using a mound of stones as support. When she finally made it to stand on two legs, she sighed with relief and exhaustion.

She gently turned the skin of her upper arm to get a look at the wound. It was inflamed and sticky with coagulated drops, but the bleeding had apparently stopped.

But, where had the blood gone? Her entire arm was painted in red rivulets from the slash of the talons.

Rey grasped the cave wall as she realized that none of it had been a dream. If she was injured... if she had been tended to... and if she was anywhere but the palace at Naboo...

It had happened. She had been kidnapped by the black dragon.

Rey's heart caught in her chest and she sank to the ground, staring at her arm in disbelief. She should be dead. The cut itself was not large but it was clean and deep, and had not been sewn up. The pain alone, she felt, was enough proof that this was a mortal wound. Rey tried bending it, even a little, but pain shot up and down her nerves and it felt as though her arm would fall off like it was attached to her only by threads.

So she held her arm and stumbled forward toward the light of dusk, and peered cautiously out at the rain-showered landscape before her.

The green hills of the peasant farmlands rolled out below in waves from the wind. The only buildings she could see were scattered farmhouses at least 20 miles off in the distance, little specks of dark stone from where she stood.

Rey peered forward and around. Nothing but a sheer rock face to her left. To her right was a more craggy surface of what was apparently a mountain. The mountain... the Misty Heights of Naboo. She was at least fifty miles from the palace, and on the other side of this great stone heap, five miles inland, would be the suburbs of the walled city of Coruscant.

If she could make it down the mountain, there was safe passage through the hills to that great city just below. The only problem was that it was at least five hundred feet below, depending on the situation of this cave—and her arm wasn't going to make that journey with her.

But she could use Jedi magic to _pull_ herself up the mountain. Bend the energy of the air above her to help her make the climb up and then use an enchantment to send a signal for help.

...A signal for help. For help from who? Who would be watching? Was her grandfather even looking for her? The last time she had seen him, he was strolling away from the literally-burning wreckage of her ceremony like he had been on a evening stroll. He hadn't even taken a glance back at her.

Well. Then she would figure something out for herself. Rey wouldn't just sit idle and wait for death.

She strode to the right edge of the cave, grasping the smooth cut of the wall with both hands, and leaned over to gauge the first footfall she would take.

“You don't want to do that.”

Rey froze. The sudden roar of his voice sent a chill through her colder than the rain, and she felt a large exhalation blow against her back.

Cautiously, she turned to face her captor. She was so frightened, so very frightened, but she couldn't let it show. She had been taught, and trained herself, to always maintain the composure necessary for Jedi magic to work to its full potential. It was necessary not only to cast it, but to be ready for the moment to strike out. To be prepared.

Her eyes shook as she blinked at the face before her, however. About ten feet away was the massive head of the black-scaled, ruby-eyed dragon. His breathing was labored, and his head bobbed gently with every snuff and snort of air.

Rey had so many questions. So many kriffing questions. But what did you even begin with when questioning the dragon that kidnapped you on the day of your arranged political marriage, following the night your own grandfather tried to strangle fear into you?

So she blurted out the first thing that felt right.

“Why in the Maker's name shouldn't I?”

The dragon's expression didn't change. Then again, she wasn't entirely sure if they could really express anything at all. In any case, he didn't blink. He didn't move.

“For one, you're wearing a gown.”

Oh. She had completely forgotten she was still in an almost floor-length wedding dress. That _would_ pose many problems. But it wouldn't be impossible. She opened her mouth to rebut, yet he continued.

“And your arm. You'll just fall to your death.”

“And whose fault is that? Don't pretend you give a damn, you did this to me! You... monster!”

He exhaled loudly again, and it felt almost like a humorless laugh.

“Yes, I am.”

Rey's face twisted in visible confusion and disgust. “You _are_ what? You kidnapped me and trapped me up here, and now you're trying to protect me from death? If you're going to talk to me at all, have the decency to speak your mind in full!”

She winced. The muscles in her arm tensed with her anger, and she could no longer hold the cave wall anymore. She let her bum arm go, but then dizziness bowled her over. She fell onto her rear, and looked up into the ever-closer eyes of the dragon. He had closed the distance between them, so much so that the ruby eye upon her was almost within reach.

“I _am_ a monster. But I won't live to see my human form again if you perish.” He backed away, still watching her fixedly, and flapped one webbed wing toward the center of the cave, near where she had been asleep.

Suddenly, a bright orb of pure blue light appeared, and burst into a flickering flame that nestled onto the damp floor. It didn't go out.

Rey clambered to it. She didn't realize it until then, but she was shivering from the cold. And the damp. She plopped down on folded legs, and warmed her hands on this astonishing fire.

She looked up at the dragon in surprise. He just nestled down and closed his eyes.

“Did...did you really just make this fire?”

An eye slowly opened. She gulped. It was so terrifying, even if she felt no malice in his current presence.

“I just mean, that I study Jedi magic and I've never seen this technique before. It's... impressive.”

The memory of his speech at the wedding came back in a rude smack. He said he had been human before. It was possible he had been trained in Jedi magic, especially if he had worked for her grandfather.

But why was she inadvertently complimenting the beast who kept her hostage? She sneered and looked away, but kept her hands and feet close to the flame.

The dragon grunted. “That doesn't surprise me. Your grandfather wouldn't want you to become too powerful.”

She turned back at him, scowling. “And what do you know about him? I'm awfully curious why you'd kidnap me if I'm not powerful enough for Emperor Palpatine.”

He blinked a few times rapidly. He wasn't able to express much without eyebrows or lips, but she could sense he was taken aback.

“Fair enough. Let's just say I was the Captain of the First Order of the Knights of Ren, and went on many 'diplomatic' missions for him. I learned too much, and he--”

The dragon roared with a cry of pain equivalent to the bleating of a thousand fathiers. His back arched into the air, and then he swiftly collapsed to the ground, claws splayed. His breathing was quickened and uneven. His eyes were wide, but blinking fast.

Rey felt herself stand up, and run to him. She could feel his pain in the energy around her, and she wouldn't rest easy if she couldn't soothe his a little.

She gasped when she reached his head. She must not have seen it past the jagged arrangement of his scales, but there was a deep slash across his...snout?...that was faintly dripping blood.

“You're hurt.” She gently touched the wound. He grunted a low sound of disgust.

“That's...not...the problem.”

“Well it is most definitely _a_ problem. I don't know anything about dragons, but I'm pretty sure an infection in a gash this deep would kill one.”

He parted his jaw to reply, but hesitated. Honestly, he wasn't that much more knowledgeable about dragons than she was.

He remained quiet as she touched it. But she suddenly stopped.

Rey took a step back. “Did you heal my arm? It stopped bleeding, and it would never have stopped by itself.”

He looked away.

“Answer me. You've got to keep answering me, or I'll just fling myself off this cliff.”

He turned to her. She was an enigma. And this was coming from a man who turned into a dragon.

“Your life is that meaningless to you?”

Rey took a seat by the fire, closer to him this time. She stared into it fixedly, as if searching for answers in its dancing licks of flames. Her eyes never left it as she spoke.

“Today I was supposed to flee my wedding. I... had an important journey to make. But none of it matters if I end up back in my grandfather's arms.” She sighed, and her arm unsteadily lifted to swipe a wet lock of hair behind her ear. She began after a gasp of a breath. “S-so even if you plan to keep me alive, I'd much rather be dead than go back to a murderer who wants to use me as a puppet.”

This was a lot to take in. He hadn't counted on this woman being more than a simple-minded heiress, but she was paying attention to the world around her.

He laughed.

His laugh toyed at the flames before them, and he caught himself before he could extinguish it.

Rey glared at him. “What is so kriffing funny to you? You wouldn't know what it's like to have your life turned... Oh.”

She felt guilty. He may have kidnapped her, but he seemed to know that the Emperor was evil, and was punished for it. She felt, in some tiny way, that she could trust him. And so she felt bad for forgetting herself in that moment.

He laughed again however.

“I hadn't counted on the Lady Rey Palpatine escaping her own wedding. I'm surprised you're even aware of the Emperor's... wrongdoings. For my sake, I'm glad I arrived when I did.”

Rey slumped back against a rock formation. “I guess I am, too. For now.” She eyed him. “You most definitely healed me. You said it yourself, I'm no use to you dead.”

He snorted and looked away. She smirked. That was that, then.

“Right. Well I'm not one to leave debts unpaid.” She approached him. She found herself less uncomfortable in his presence.

He, however, backed away slightly. She reached up to touch his face, as before, but at the last moment, he jerked away. His jagged scales cut against her hand, laying a clean cut upon her palm.

“Ouch, Maker! What did you do that for?”

“Me? You're approaching a dragon with your arms stretched out.”

She huffed and sat back down. “Never mind. I was just going to heal you, that's all.” Rey tore a length of her gown from the hem.

“I can heal myself just fine.”

“Right,” Rey said, winding the fabric around her palm. “That's why you're still leaking blood everywhere.”

He looked down, and indeed his drips of blood had formed a small pool by his claw. “Damn it.”

Rey tied a tight knot in the makeshift bandage, and looked up at him curiously. “So, do you have a plan for all this?” She waved at them, the cave. “Or are you just winging the whole kidnapping thing?”

“In time your grandfather's search parties will find us. I made sure to leave clues. This cave is small enough that they can't bring in heavy weapons, but big enough to negotiate your release for my humanity.”

Huh. So he had given it thought. She didn't take him for the sensible type, what with the sloppiness of his own healing magic, and the rough handling he'd given her while carrying her away from the palace.

“Why _did_ he curse you?”

“I already told you, I know too much.”

“Yes, but what about?” Rey was eager to know more about her grandfather, the villain apparent. Maybe she _should_ return to Naboo, if only to tear down his reign.

“You saw me in pain earlier. That wasn't from the wound.” He turned to look at her. “I can't speak much about this curse.”

She shook her head. “Well, that's no use.”

He paused, and she could swear if he had eyebrows, they'd be furrowed.

“Why?”

She smiled slightly. “I can't help you break a curse you can't tell me about.”

He thought she had no more surprises left in her, but here he was again, floored, by her unpredictability and sense of...do-gooding.

He trusted too many people, however. Look where it landed him.

“You want to help me break this curse?”

“Yes, that's what I said, isn't it?”

“I... don't know. I think I may be hard of hearing, because it sounds like you just said you want to help me break my curse.”

“ _Yes_ I _do_ \-- no, I _don't_ think you have a hearing problem. That's exactly right.”

“Me. The err, dragon that kidnapped you.”

“Once-human dragon,” she corrected. Her smile faded and her face took on a stoic seriousness that caught him even more off-guard. “If you know something important about my grandfather's plots, you're no enemy of mine. Kidnapper or not.”

“You wish to take down the Emperor, then?”

“For the Empire, I'd give my life to ensure their safety.”

“What about your journey?”

She smiled wanly at him. He could feel the sadness of giving up, of responsibility and duty over dreams and goals.

“It can wait until the peace is restored.” She held out her hands and looked down at them. “I thought _I_ was the one with dangerous powers surfacing. I thought if I stayed in Naboo, I'd be a danger to those around me.” Rey laughed mirthlessly. “It turns out the danger was my own kin.”

There was a long silence interrupted only by the rain, which had slowed from a downpour to a slight shower.

“This is more complicated than you could know.”

“I adapt easily.”

“Whatever magic you _do_ know is not enough to stand against his arcane Sith powers.”

She flinched. “I'm a quick learner.”

“You don't even know me, or who I am.”

She gazed at him. She looked over his horrifying ruby eyes. His snarl of a mouth. The edges and points of his uneven jagged scales. The horns that twisted maliciously from his head.

But what she sensed in his life energy was so much more than his appearance. She sensed... fear. Hopelessness.

“I can tell you're not to be feared, dragon,” she said quietly, fearful that her words were a mistake she would regret.

He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Rey thought him asleep, but after what must have been several minutes, when she was curled up on the mat she'd found herself on, he finally spoke.

“I was knighted as Captain Kylo Ren of the First Order of the Knights of Ren. ...You may call me Ben.”

As she felt the drowsiness settle upon her like a soothing hand, her mouth twisted into a smile. Perhaps this could work in her favor. Perhaps the dragon...Ben... could help her.

“We'll break the curse, Ben...” She mumbled as sleep carried her off.

He watched her smile and felt his heart hardening. Ben knew the odds were stacked against them. With as little as she knew about Jedi magic, and his inability to speak about the curse's nature, there was no way they could just barge in as two humans and save the day.

He felt a bit saddened that the road to his freedom would bring the Dark magic upon this foolish, bright-eyed girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this wasn't messy! I had a lot I wanted to accomplish in their first conversation, but I believe I made my points and lined up my pieces. Buckle up, crazy things are gonna start happening.


	4. Fighting: People, the Past and Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A change of place, a change of pace. Rey begins her magic studies under the tutelage of Ben, and the two begin to form a deeper connection than that of just captor and hostage. In fact, is she even really a hostage anymore...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the extreme gap between chapter publications!! I had a lot to sort out in this story, and figure out how to execute the most important details of this chapter and the overall story in this one single chapter.
> 
> A lot happens, and the chapter is quite lengthy, but I hope you enjoy the continued narrative of Lady Rey and Ben the Dragon!

Rey slept soundly, dreaming in vague memories of her childhood in Naboo. Of playing with Rose in the palace gardens, and creating mischief for their tutor. For once, her sleep was untouched by nightmares.

It would seem they had passed on to the dragon formerly known as Ben.

He dreamed in memories that night, also, but to him, these were better off forgotten.

His homeland, Alderaan… His parents. The last look back he’d given them as he set off to fight for Tatooine, unaware of the ten years’ war on the horizon. The last look he’d had of them.

The night he learned that everything was fixed, and that both ‘sides’ were being controlled by one man. That the death and destruction was somehow benefiting him.

He was a knight of ‘Tatooine’ in name only. In reality, he was working for a man that they had all severely misjudged and underestimated.

The night he had been found out. Rather, the night he found out everything, and walked straight into a trap. Brought to the ‘enemy’ palace, tossed at the Emperor’s feet like garbage.

That night, having been his last as a human. That fearsome face etching into his brain as he felt the curse take hold--

The loud sound of heavy, flapping cloth stirred him. Before him stood Rey, holding her sleeping mat quite close to his ear. Both she and it were sopping wet, and she looked… quite menacing, actually.

“What--”

“We have several leaks. It’s a matter of when, not if, this cave collapses.”

“We need to relocate.” More of a question than a statement, despite the fact that it wasn’t up to her to decide.

“Yes, yes we do. Besides,” She rolled her mat up and tucked it underneath her good arm, “this cave isn’t nearly large enough for me to practice in.” Her eyes seemed to sparkle. Ben was wondering if all hostages turned this friendly this quickly, if she was just overly forgiving, or maybe had a few bits loose.

“Practice what.” More of a statement than a question, precisely because he knew what was coming and yet was not prepared to deal with it. He rose and walked toward the mouth of the cave.

As he surveyed the valley in its pink dawn below, she came up beside him. “Magic. And fighting.”

There was simply no time to teach her. The clues he left gave them at most four weeks. The amount of enemies they’d encounter through any plan of ingress, plus the throne room itself -- it was too many for a knight and an amateur.

He would just have to risk it. Turn her in, gain his humanity, and then… His last battle.

Of course he wouldn’t survive a fight against that man, but he’d been prepared for that all along. The only thing that mattered to Ben was living long enough to finish off the man behind the curtain of the war.

“I cannot teach you everything as a dragon. You mentioned… breaking this curse.”

Rey smiled. “Of course.”

He was the mystical, powerful dragon and yet she was always the one with mysterious one-liners and a cool composure. He grunted at the irony.

“Of course? You know much about curses, Lady Palpatine?”

Her smile curled rather quickly into a frown of disgust. “Please, Ben. Just call me Rey,” she said quietly.

“Rey. You--”

She cut him off with a sharp nod. “Yes. I may not know everything about Jedi magic, but I know of the curses. Most of them.”

His heart pounded heavily as he wondered how on earth she could come by this knowledge.

After a long silence, she finally looked at him. She almost gasped at his expression. He looked… vulnerable. His eyes were almost frightened, and his body was rising and falling with heavy breaths.

“I was hoping you weren’t serious.”

“Wh-why?”

“Curses aren’t Jedi magic.” His eyes were sadder now, and he spoke less harshly. “They’re Sith magic.”

And not the good kind, he thought. Most Sith magic was in fact lethal and offensive, but some of it could be made useful. The lightning spell was easily manipulated into a firestarter, which Ben had used the previous night.

Rey felt her stomach turn. Her mind raced as she tried to remember. Who had taught her about curses? About transformations, runes of marking, verbal bindings and words of power?

He could sense her energy blackening, and swept her back from the cave’s mouth with a wing. She shouted in surprise; she felt the answer was just in reach, but now was gone.

“What are you doing?”

“Hop on.”

“Hop-- on you?” She flushed. That was something she never expected to say, and it didn’t sound right. “On your back,” she corrected, but, nope. It still didn’t sound right.

“How else are we both going to leave this cave?”

Her mind felt somewhat soothed, and she almost sighed in relief. “So you have a place in mind.”

“Do you want to ride in my talons again?” Ben couldn’t help his impatience. Rey was acting girlishly timid again, and he had no time for that.

She quickly scrambled towards him, but when she got to his side, she realized just how tiny and insignificant her human body was next to his dragon one. And that just ‘hopping on’ wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

He wasn’t as large as the old dragons used to be, but his torso was at least fifteen feet high at its jagged peak. She stared at all those ridged scales. She could find footholds in them, but literally climbing him? That didn’t sit well with her.

Suddenly, she felt something hard-edged tap against her calf. She yelped as she was still deep in thought, but her surprise changed immediately to quiet astonishment as she realized what had hit her.

Ben was offering her his wing as a foothold. She looked him in the eye. He lowered his head in what she assumed was a nod, and so she stood upon it. She stumbled to stay grounded as he passed her through the air and deposited her right against the back of his head. Conveniently where the jagged spine of scales ended.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“Grab onto my horns.”

She reached cautiously for them, her fingertips brushing against them. Wasn’t this just a little bit dehumanizing? If not painful for him?

“You’re not going to hurt me, just… go ahead.”

So he did sense all this reluctance in her. “I just don’t want to treat another human like a beast, that’s all.” She huffed, and unceremoniously grabbed hold of the horns.

He grunted at the sudden handling of arguably his most sensitive area. Not that he actually knew what that area was until just now. He felt humbled and yet also powerless in this position. His heart raced at the sheer feeling of it, and the knowledge that she was dominant over him now.

“Let’s go.”

He leapt out of the cave without so much as a countdown or a starting run. He didn’t need to, Rey quickly discovered, as he tore through the skies with incredible ease. As if he manipulated the wind itself to accommodate him. 

“How long have you... been doing this?” Rey yelled above the roar of the air around them.

“It’s been about five years.”

“F--Five years?! Why in Mustafar would you wait so long to regain your humanity?”

Rey found that talking to him kept her from looking below. But she was also undeniably curious about him. Rather, about his status as a dragon. Right.

“Who said it was my choice to wait?”

“Did something else happen to you?”

He dove for a clearing over the mountains, gaining momentum and making it impossible to talk. The velocity was intense.

He landed in a grassy meadow on the other side of the Misty Heights of Naboo, and they were now directly outside of another cave. Wonderful. The dank air had just cleared her lungs, and now it was all going to go back in again.

Ben helped Rey to the ground, and she shivered as the cold winds of the valley passed through her. It was unquestionably colder on this side of the mountains: the sun was barely able to pass over the ridge even at noon, and they weren’t far from the base.

Ben had been watching her carefully, and started a small fire near the tree Rey had leaned against. He looked her up and down.

“You’re freezing,” he growled.

Rey turned and rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I am, don’t you feel this wind?”

“No, you’re actually freezing. Your clothes and hair are wet, and the wind won’t let up down here.”

The next word out of his mouth made them both feel deeply uncomfortable, and varying degrees of other intense emotion.

“Undress.”

Rey’s face heated up and she shot a glare at him as she wrapped her arms around her chest. She didn’t take him for a pervert, but then again, she didn’t know him all too well. And she was his hostage, for better or worse. 

Ben was the first to speak, correcting himself in a flurry of words. “There’s a trunk in the cave directly across from the waterfall. Get something dry to wear.”

Then he was gone in a burst of flight, all wings and surges of air. Rey’s mouth was still agape, but she knew he was right. She would get sick if she kept like this. Plus, she was still wearing that damnable wedding tunic, and it smelled after everything she’d been put through in it.

Rey made her way into the cave, and gasped as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was vast, tall, and had several winding paths built into its craggy walls.

The main attraction was the light coming from ahead. She was drawn to it, and kept moving forward. As she made her way through the relatively uncluttered and open-space main tunnel, the sound of rushing water hit her ears, growing louder and louder--

“Unbelievable,” she breathed. There really was a waterfall in this cave. It fell impossibly from a relatively small opening in the ceiling of the cave, filling a gigantic pool with its constant stream. The light from above danced with the falling water and the darkness of the cave just below it, creating a strange spot of brightness in all this murky atmosphere.

Rey eventually found herself able to move after being entranced by such natural beauty, and she located the chest Ben had mentioned. A simple object of brass and wood, but full to the brim with gorgeous treasures.

Tomes of varying sizes and written in unintelligible languages lined one side, and were covered with a spread of translucent jewels of bright yet rich shades of yellow and red. On the other side were finely-spun clothes. She dug through them, marveling at each piece. Dresses for noblewomen, reinforced tunics and leggings for layering underneath armor… and something quite strange.

Rey pulled out the bundle of fabric and unrolled it. A man’s short-cropped tunic and slacks, with a pair of soft boots in the center.

She recognized the craftsmanship. These were spun -- and the boots forged -- by an Alderaanian. Rey’s heart hurt, and she wondered if he’d had anything to do with the siege on the village kingdom.

The slacks and boots fit perfectly, the tunic a little loose for comfort, but it was better than staying wet. She returned to the fire outside and waited for the dragon’s return. There wasn’t much else she could do.

Rey brainstormed all the possible ways to reverse the curse until she drifted to sleep against the tree behind her, the warmth of the fire overwhelming her feelings of exhaustion.

Ben had made careful surveillance of Naboo from the top of the mountains. Nothing seemed out of sorts. It had been three or four days already, yet there was no semblance of a sense of urgency, fright or disturbance in the land below. The amount and size of patrols was the same as ever, and the townsfolk went about life as if nothing had happened.

It was very strange. Everything was very much calm for a kingdom that had just lost its only heir.

The time had escaped him, and he soon realized just how long he’d been away from her. It wasn’t a matter of trust or worry that she would run, so what was it that was fueling his need to return to her…

He landed sloppily and heavily in the field, creating a gust of wind that blew against her sleeping figure. She started, and stared at him.

He stared back. She was wearing those clothes… He felt uncontrollable fury seeing someone else in them, but it dissolved as he realized that Rey suited them. She wore them as they were made to be worn.

Neither of them spoke for some time, and Rey looked away after it became too embarrassing to stare. “Shall we eat something?”

He grunted. “I’ve already had my meal. You’re going to need to hunt yours.”

Rey stood up, brushing herself off. She thought to make a quip about the appetite of a dragon, but realized his eating habits were probably not very delightful to discuss. So she followed Ben as he approached the side of the cave entrance.

He rustled the grass around it, and blew sharply through his nostrils as he found himself unable to dislodge the item from its hiding place.

Rey laughed, and jogged over to him. “Having trouble with that, Ben?” She smirked and bent to grab the item. It was a long staff with a retractable spearhead at the end. Unbelievably magnificent craftsmanship. Just like--

“Those clothes.” He growled, and their eyes met. She looked somewhat frightened. “You do them justice.”

“They’re Alderaanian.”

“Mm.”

“Alderaan was--I mean, it’s not--,”

“It was where I was fathered and raised.”

“Oh,” Rey felt like such a fool for not realizing it. Those were his and his family’s belongings in that trunk, not the plunders of war. When and how would a soldier in a bloody war have the time to steal the clothes off of dead peasants’ backs?

Then she realized something else. She flushed. “I am so sorry, I can wear something else in there, it’s just this was the only thing suitable for training, and... These were yours, weren’t they?”

“A long time ago. Just keep them.”

Rey hefted the spear and toyed with it. Anything to move past this. “So… how am I to hunt? You must be aware I have no knowledge of the sport.”

“You can feel the energy in the air, correct?”

They had begun moving back toward the tree in the clearing, taking slow paces through the tall grass.

Rey nodded. “Every living being gives off energy, which contributes to the energy around us that we manipulate in our magics. If you’re attuned to the energy, you can sense not only presences, but if they’re hostile,” she turned the shaft of the spear in her hands, spotting specks of blood in places that someone had failed to clean. “Or hurt.”

“You’re going to calm your mind and find a small creature with neutral energy. Zero in on its location, and let me know when you have found it.”

Rey’s brows were furrowed, but she nodded at him, if a little nervously so. She let her arms fall to her side, and closed her eyes. The wind brushing past her soon roared in her ears as the only sound she could hear.

She felt Ben’s presence, his energy large and for the most part unreadable. She felt her own energy, small and spasmatic as it always was.

Then she reached out with her mind and felt for energies beyond her grasp. She felt her arm raise instinctively, even though she knew she couldn’t touch whatever it was she was sensing.

The energy, small and distorted at first, became clearer and solid before her. It was a small and frightened thing, moving through the atmosphere with only so much certainty of itself. It had no distinct personality however, no defining traits that marked a human’s energy. Every person had an energy defined by its size, emotion and their greatest defining quality manifested in a physical sense. It was difficult to describe, but Rey could feel the shape of who someone was through these means. The creature some distance away from her had no shape, just fear in its existence.

Her outstretched hand curved into a point, and she opened her eyes to look at Ben. “In the tall grass that direction. It’s small, but I can’t tell where it is. It could be incredibly far from here.”

“Doesn’t matter. Next you’re going to open your palm, and pull.”

Rey gave him a look of confusion, but did as she was instructed. She stretched her open hand out, and did her best to feel the creature moving at her will, its energy bending itself toward her at her will. She gasped when a small figure slowly floated toward her.

“A weasel!” She was looking at it as it floated above her head now, and laughed triumphantly.

Ben was shocked at her ability to learn so quickly. He had to remember himself. “Now you’re going to close your hand, tightly, while focusing all your mind on that animal’s life energy.”

Her smile faded. She shook her head at him. “You can’t be telling me this-- you expect me to strangle this creature?”

“It’s magic. It will be quick for this being.”

“Jedi magic has never taught me anything so vile before!”

“No, I imagine not.”

He gave her a meaningful blink, and she returned her gaze to the weasel above. Of course. It was a Sith magic.

She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

Then she felt the spear lift from her back and shoot out at the animal. Its life energy gone, it fell from the air.

She lowered her arm and looked at Ben fiercely, defiantly. “Tell me what comes next.”

Rey ate in silence in front of him. She couldn’t bring herself to use the Sith magics yet, even though she knew it was going to be the key to bringing down her grandfather. Fighting fire with fire, and all of that.

They both spoke up at the same time.

“How’s your facial wound?”

“Do you think you’ll be ready to train at dawn?”

Silence. They were both incredibly awkward people, Rey realized. She nodded at him. “You go.”

He grunted. “We train at dawn.”

She looked around her, at the bright late-morning sunlight. As she finished chewing, she held her arm out, gesturing, and said, “What about today? We have a good seven hours of daylight to work with!”

“I have nothing else to teach you for the moment. You can practice out there yourself.” His eyes slowly closed. He gave her the impression of extreme exhaustion, but there was no way a dragon as large as him could have already worn himself out.

“Are you alright, Ben?”

He looked up at the softness in her voice. And the use of his real name. He hadn’t been addressed so kindly in such a long time.

“Yes. Don’t worry about me. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t realized it yet.”

Oh, she didn’t like this question. She flushed and tossed her empty skewer at the fire. “Realized what?”

“That our energies are unreadable to each other. It’s… unnerving.”

“Oh. I did see yours, but… just the size and shape of your broader emotions.” Rey shook her head. “I just assumed it was because you’ve closed yourself off from me.”

She stared meaningfully into his eyes. Never mind his magic energy, she wasn’t able to read his body language or figure out his basic thoughts. He was more than a dragon, he was an enigma of a cursed man.

“Do you know what it means?”

“I’ve never met a woman I couldn’t read. Er, or any other human,” he added. He constantly forgot himself in her presence and it was beginning to get strange.

“Uh-huh. So,” Rey, desperate to salvage the conversation, said, “what was Alderaan like?”

The silence that followed made Rey think she had only made things much worse, and she began to walk slowly toward the cave’s entrance.

She fingered the thin fabric of her tunic. It was spun so deftly, it was impossible to feel a single thread. It had been made with great care.

“It doesn’t matter. I have no right to talk about it. ...I destroyed it.”

It was as though a stone had hit her in the center of her back. She struggled to stay standing. She turned to look at him.

“Why would you do that?”

“You think I did it on purpose?” He huffed, and continued without any regard for her. His eyes were menacing slits burning her from the inside.

“I had just been cursed. I was still able to force down the dragon side of me, and wanted to see my family one last time. I didn’t think it was too much to ask for. But when I got there… I wasn’t me any longer.” Ben’s voice softened, saddened.

“What happened.” Rey tried to hide the fright in her voice, but she could sense he was too distraught to notice her.

“I don’t exactly remember anything that happened afterward. Just… a lot of screaming and fire. My parents’ faces were the last thing I remember seeing. I woke up, and the entire village was half-burnt to the ground. I… didn’t stay to look.”

He didn’t have to say it. She knew there was only one thing a distraught young man would be searching for in a time of crisis. She imagined all the horrible things that could have happened to them. “So then you exiled yourself.” After taking what was left of his parents’ belongings.

“I didn’t want to do… I had done enough things in the war, I couldn’t…” 

“It’s fine. I’m… I’m going to go practice now.”

She walked out of the cave, then when she found herself out of sight, she broke into a sprint. Tears streamed down her face. He had killed his parents. She was furious, but for reasons that made her feel guilty.

He had a loving family. Parents, a home where he was always welcome. And he just destroyed it. Even though he had blacked out, she was still so furious that he destroyed the things in this world that she craved the most. The things she envied of everyone else.

Rey reached out, felt for energy, and pulled it toward her. It came too naturally to her, but this skill could save her life. She couldn’t deny herself her magic abilities.

The object that came flying toward her was a romakin. She had to laugh at the irony. The animal was known for its incredible sense of loyalty to its pack, and mated for life. She began to choke it, twisted her clenched fist… 

And then she dropped it. She wasn’t a monster. And, if she was honest with herself, neither was he. He had been manipulated. He literally was not himself when he had destroyed his home. She couldn’t fathom the guilt that weighed upon him, but she could understand why he spent five years in solitary living after such a thing.

And still, she was terrified. Not just of Ben, but the plan. Would she be strong enough for all of this if the mere telling of an event in the past was all it took to unnerve her?

“Hey, it’s her!”

“Is that the Lady?”

Rey glanced up, and saw a caravan of soldiers on the road ahead. She wasn’t sure how she was still recognizable in this peasant garb, but she supposed her incredibly long, braided hair was a giveaway.

She ran up to them, and found them in the armor of the castle guards. Relief washed over her. She could go back. She could just… forget everything and marry Armitage. She had been kidnapped, so there was no reason for things to not go back to normal. Her grandfather… didn’t know she’d seen his powers that day.

Rey didn’t like this, but she was scared of the alternative. The right thing to do was save her people from her grandfather, even if it meant working alongside a dangerous ex-soldier.

“I’m so glad to see you! I knew my grandfather would send out such capable soldiers to find me. Help me in the cart, and we’ll be off, then!”

She looked at the faces around her, smiling. They weren’t. They looked blankly back at her, some making sad eyes at her.

“That won’t be happening,” Rey turned to face the captain, and found his eyes cold and emotionless. She looked down. His hand was on his hilt.

They weren’t sent to save her. They were sent to kill her.

Rey tried to run, but was seized by two of the men. “Why?!” she cried out, struggling in vain against them. They had her by the cut on her arm, and pressed hard on it.

“They’re going to say they found you dead. That I killed you, and was nowhere to be found. And they’ve been ordered to do so by the Emperor. Do I have it all correct?”

Rey had never been so glad to hear a beast talk. She felt huge rushes of air on her back, and realized it was his exhalations.

The soldiers didn’t move, but they let Rey go. She dashed to Ben’s side, and pulled the spear from her back, aiming it at them.

“We have our orders. We won’t leave here while she’s still breathing.”

They actually admitted to it. It knocked the wind out of Rey, but she tightened her grip on her spear to focus.

Ben looked her way. She nodded.

And so it began. The soldiers raised their axes, swords and lances, and Ben ready his talons as Rey poised her spear.

They charged. Rey ducked as a heavy axe flew her way, and she headbutted the man brandishing it. He stumbled back, the weapon flailing in his wobbling arm, and Rey stabbed him in rapid succession in the leg, weapon arm, and shoulder. As he collapsed, Rey sensed two more approaching from either side.

She stretched her arms out, grabbed, and brought her clenched fists together. She felt amazement wash over her as she watched the two soldiers, choking and spitting, crash into each other before her eyes. She tossed them aside like sacks of vegetables, and turned to find Ben in the flurry.

He was doing well, considering the majority of the squad was overwhelming him. He plucked them out of the air like so many pieces of a chess board, either with his talons or his horns. They were sent flying with effortless sways of his body.

Then, a heavy soldier in thick plate and chainmail swooped in from seemingly nowhere, and stabbed Ben’s underbelly. He roared, and stumbled. Rey screamed, feeling his pain in her own gut, and ran to him without thinking.

The heavy turned on her, and so did his weapon. She didn’t think he’d have it free so soon. A fatal miscalculation. His crossguard sword, glowing a faint red from enchantment and dripping red with Ben’s blood, swung her way.

“NO!”

At the same moment she shot her hand out and pushed him away with the force of her magic, he was blown away in a completely different direction, making a strange arc from all the magic guiding his body around.

Rey fell to her knees. A strange power pulled at her, and her strength in that moment was intolerable. It was powerful, so powerful it felt like it was killing her. She felt like she was wielding the energy of two people at once.

She felt the pain in her gut, his pain, intensifying as well. Rey looked at him, only to find him already staring at her.

“I’ve never… felt magic so strong before. Do you see now… ?” He was struggling to speak, and she wanted to hush him up more than anything, but she was also deeply curious. Did he have any idea what was happening to them?

“It was like we worked in tandem without… without having to--”

“Without thinking. Rey, I’ve heard of this only once before. I--” He roared and fell to the ground. 

“Ben!” She moved to his wound in haste, but he covered it before she could even begin.

She looked at his face in shock. His eyes were half open; he struggled to keep conscious. “You have to let me heal you! You’ll die, Ben!”

“No… I can do this.” His eyes closed, and he breathed in and out. Steady, heavy breaths, coming slowly so as to not shake with the pain he was feeling.

He moved his wing away, and revealed a mostly-healed slash on his belly. Still, it didn’t look good.

“Let’s get back to the cave,” Rey said the words she never imagined she would, but that dank place was their only hope of healing in safety. But she couldn’t be sure how far away it was.

With Ben’s labored words of assistance, they arrived at the cave just as the sun began to set. She settled him down in the back, by the waterfall, so she could clean out his wound. He insisted against it, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

Rey walked down the slope to the pool of water below, and ran a strip of cloth through it. She wrung it out and returned to him. She glanced at him, then his wound, then back again. “This will keep your mind off of the pain of your flesh being stitched back together.”

She placed her hand over the wet rag, over the slash in his stomach, and pressed down gently.

The two of them screamed and roared in pain. Tears streamed down her face as the searing hot pain made its way through her body. Rey fell backward, and clutched her side hard.

This was no ordinary sympathetic energy. She could feel when things got hurt, even when they died, and it was at most a sting in her mind and a throbbing headache that followed. But this… she lifted her tunic to check, because she felt that she had actually been hurt herself.

She slowly sat up, and stared at him as she steadied her ragged breathing. “Is this what you meant?”

“Yes.”

“Why on earth didn’t you just incinerate everyone out there?! You wouldn’t have gotten so hurt!” Rey was furious at his recklessness, not just because it was now bringing her pain and because she could have died back there, but because he had such reckless disregard for his own wellbeing.

“I’ll never use my fire again. I’ve done enough with it.”

Alderaan. Of course. He didn’t even use his fire for practical means, she realized, as she recalled his use of magic to start their fires in the cave and then the field.

“I’m sorry. I should have realized… You’ll find I’m pretty naive soon enough.”

“I wouldn’t call it naivete.”

“No?”

“No. You’re brash and headstrong, if anything.”

Fury welled up inside her, but if she acted on it, she would only be proving him right. “Well, you’re rude, careless, and… “

“Careless?”

“Yes! You… you killed your own parents.”

“...”

“I never knew my parents, you know. You’re lucky.”

“I’m lucky?” He shifted his weight, now sitting with his focus fully upon her. “I have to live the rest of my life knowing they’re gone, because of me.”

“But it wasn’t you. It was the curse. You couldn’t know what was going to happen to you. It’s not like my grandfather said, ‘And now you’re a dragon!’, right?”

“...Not exactly.”

“See. So yes, you’re lucky. You grew up with parents. Parents who probably loved the stuffing out of you, and taught you everything they knew…”

“It’s amazing how much you miss what you don’t even know. Don’t you have any family besides Emperor Palpatine?”

Rey gazed to the side, thoughtful. “I guess Rose is like a sister to me. I’ve known her since we were children.”

“Your handmaiden?”

“Yes, but she’s barely that. She has special privileges in the palace.”

“She’s still a servant, and undoubtedly gets treated differently for these ‘privileges’ you bestow upon her.” He saw her crestfallen look, and hurried to correct himself. For some reason. “It’s not as if you could have known. It’s something I’m more acutely aware of as someone who had informants in people such as Rose.”

“I really don’t have any family then.” Rey sputtered. She was dumbstruck. How could she not realize any of this sooner? How big was this blindspot of hers? Was it only because she was ignorant royalty?

“I think we both feel awful enough to think about these things right now,” Ben said. He didn’t begin to know how to make this situation better, but shutting up seemed like a good idea.

“Well, at least I’ve found something in common with my captor. We both hurt the people we love.”

He was silent for a long time. “Do you still see me as your captor? After all this and--” He stopped himself. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was correct about what was happening to them, so he wouldn’t mention it yet. She already had a lot torturing her mind right now.

“I guess not. We’re… partners, then?” She chuckled. “It’s just so weird.”

“What is?”

“I was fully ready to run away from my wedding, and basically do the same thing I’m doing with you--running away, hiding, and learning about my abilities--but I can’t even fend for myself without your help.”

“That’s not exactly true. You held off the guards with magic you only learned today. It’s not a matter of if you can do it. It’s a matter of teaching you how.”

“Well then, thank you, tutor.” She saw his expression and laughed again. “I’m being sincere! No one would have taught me this back at the palace.”

A week passed. She trained every day, with his assistance, and at the end of every day, she tried a few different curse reversals that she was able to remember.

They steadily, hesitantly bonded, whether they knew it or not. They grew close over mutual experiences and feelings--being forced into situations that they hadn’t asked to be in, Rey being the royal granddaughter of an evil emperor, and Ben a dragon.

She told him all about her life at the palace, and the good things, the worthwhile things she had done with her life back in Naboo. The townspeople she loved.

Ben told her about the war. Tatooine had formed an unstable alliance with the Emperor as a result of their tremendous tide-turning help in creating the extinction of the dragons forty years ago.

“The dragons weren’t a threat.”

“But my grandfather said they had begun attacking the other parts of the kingdom… Just another lie?”

“Yes. The dragons were keepers of powerful Jedi magic unlike any human has ever seen. Your grandfather saw them as a threat, and had them taken down by the only people who could. Tatooinians held the same knowledge in texts, unable to practice it as efficiently, but certainly able to combat the dragons.

“The dragons were always a force for good, divine guardians of the people. But your grandfather was afraid he could not obtain the power he wanted with them around. And the knowledge he wanted was also the knowledge they shared with Tatooine. For him, the plan just fell in his lap fully-formed.”

And so Tatooine became lifetime allies with Naboo. Or, more accurately, Emperor Palpatine. Both stood to gain something from the other, and neither would relent.

“Grandfather wanted their ancient texts for more power, I understand that. What was Tatooine getting out of all of this?”

“I can’t know for sure, because they’ve never been upfront about their intentions, but I learned that they would be granted more land in their kingdom. Fertile land that they could use.”

“How could they expand their borders? There’s nothing but other kingdoms on all… sides… “ Rey realized the horrible truth, and felt bile rising in her throat. “The war was staged. Their invasion isn’t an invasion at all--they’re claiming the Naboo land that Palpatine promised them!”

Ben felt her strong waves of emotions crash into him, sadness and desperation and betrayal and anger. Disbelief and grief over thousands of pointless deaths.

“The ten years’ war is a disguise for all of this. Palpatine will get his texts as soon as they’ve successfully ‘invaded’ and claimed their land. Then he plans to make a show of ‘striking a deal’ and ending the war between them, allowing them to live on the land in exchange for heavily-taxed reparations. Which are, in actuality, the texts.”

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand… Why would my grandfather want me to marry Armitage Hux? He made it sound like a crucial political move, but it seems like the war is accomplishing everything he needs.”

“Not exactly. He doesn’t trust Tatooine to uphold their end, and rightfully so. The people of Tatooine are just as despicable as he is. Hux has been your grandfather’s go-between, and has gotten very familiar with the palace in Tatooine.”

“He knows where the texts are kept.”

“By now, I’m certain he knows. But he’ll never make it far enough into the palace to retrieve them. Not unless he has good reason… or the right person with him.”

“...I was his ticket into the palace. No one would question a visit from the Empress of Naboo and her husband, and we would have free roam of the place.” Rey swallowed as she took in all of this. “The marriage--I myself, was a contingency plan.”

They sat in silence for a long time, which was pretty abnormal these days. Ben was remarkably good company after a full day of energizing training, and the two talked about magic and life after the war animatedly. They even had deep discussions about the ethics of using magic. Ben was decidedly against it, believing that the few who were able to wield it should forget it altogether, and create equality among people. He was only using it to defend himself for now.

He couldn’t tell her how much he hated seeing her grow stronger using it. It disgusted him to see her using the same Sith and Jedi magic that brought down the dragons and began the war.

“How did you say you came by all this information?”

“I haven’t. That’s a story for another day.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll be back with dinner.” And almost instantly, he was gone.

Rey sat up for what felt like an eternity. It had been at least two hours. Surely the land wasn’t already depleted? She began nodding off on her cushioned bedding when a loud crash outside the cave startled her to her senses.

Ben had collapsed near the tree in the clearing where she had learned Jedi magic from him for the first time. It felt like so long ago. Back then, he had still been a beast in her eyes.

She felt like she could look at him now and see beyond the scales, see in her mind’s eye the man he once was. She felt his humanity in every word he spoke.

As she reached his side, he roared in pain. “What happened?! Where did you go?”

“Ngh… I flew too low near Coruscant. They used their catapults…”

“Let me see the damage.”

“No!” He snorted and grunted, and struggled to cover the harmed area.

“Why do you resist my help so much?” She fell to her knees in front of his face. “I don’t want to see you die. Just… let me help you!”

Tears welled at her eyes, surprising them both. But she kept on staring at him. “Don’t do this…” 

“I don’t deserve your help.”

“What? Of course you do!”

“You don’t know the things I’ve done!”

“You couldn’t help it, you were a dragon. We’ve been through this before, Ben!”

“I’m not talking about then, I’m talking about the war.”

Rey paused, but shook her head. “I refuse to believe you did anything I couldn’t forgive.”

“You couldn’t--?” Ben’s eyes were narrowing with the exhaustion of his pain, and now the confusion clouding his mind.

Rey felt the words trapped in the back of her throat. Coward she was, she couldn’t tell him, even as he was dying before her eyes. 

She watched as his eyes finally shut. Then she ran to his side and placed her palm against the center of the huge gash in his side. 

“We have so much to talk about… there’s so much left you have to teach me… there’s still so much I want to know about you.” She felt her life energy draining from her fingertips, and seeping into him. She watched as his flesh began to mend itself slowly and gently before her eyes. As she grew woozy from the transference, she heard herself finally say it.

“Ben Solo, dragon or not, you’re going to stay with me… You’re not going to leave me. I love you.”

She allowed herself to collapse as she finally stitched the last of the bleeding, torn skin together.

The two lay across from each other, unconscious beneath the tree and the starry sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut isn't far off on the horizon now. >:) But you may have to be patient with me again, as I've never written smut before and want to write this well!


	5. Chapter 3.5: Rose and Hux Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While preparing Rey's plan of escape, Rose encounters a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first in a series of Rose, Hux, and GingerRose interludes. It's a lot of fluff but it also serves to give insight into these two and the roles they play in this story.
> 
> This particular chapter takes place about one month before the wedding.

It was a beautiful, balmy day in Naboo, but Rose couldn't quite feel happy in this good weather. The wind played with her hair as it pushed the tears faster down her cheeks. She gripped the balcony rail tighter for more strength.

She had been in this castle longer than she lived in her own home. After her older sister died, her parents were left unable to support themselves. Paige's husband was a nobleman, and he had seen to their livelihood. That all changed when the First Order of Tatooine began their invasion of the borderlands of Naboo. Paige died in an explosion just down the street from her own home. She had been out buying food from the grocer when the attack was launched. It was the beginning of the ten-years' war.

Her parents had been nobles long ago, but their coin ran dry when their mines collapsed. They were important figures in name only, and paupers until Paige had married. When she passed, her husband all but turned his back on them. They left Rose to fend for herself while they sought out a means to provide for themselves.

They never returned. She had only been ten.

Her friendship with the Emperor's granddaughter was her saving grace. Lady Rey had pleaded with him to make her a handmaid. She did it to provide her with shelter, food, and a position in the court, and Rose was grateful. Rey didn't treat her any differently, and bent so many rules to make sure she felt at home. They spent many nights awake together, telling stories until they fell asleep on Rey's bed. Endless days were spent among the gardens as teenagers, when they were both done with studies. And whenever Rose needed time to herself, Rey came up with an excuse to dismiss her.

Rose blinked away her tears. She felt as though she had been given more than she could have ever thought to ask for. She felt selfish for wanting more. For wanting Rey to stay.

She understood why she felt the need to leave. An arranged marriage was never something Rey would agree to, undoubtedly. Rose had also sensed the change in Rey's emotions and moods, and her heightened aggression during fencing and Jedi lessons. Rose recognized the problems Rey had described to her, and she wanted what was best for her truest friend. But she couldn't bear the thought of being away from the person who knew her best—and for how long? Rey could be gone for years. And would the Emperor allow a handmaiden to stay with no maiden to attend to?

Rose would figure something out. She wiped her face as a choked sob escaped her lips. She had to do something, because she'd been tasked by Rey to co-develop a plan of escape. An escape on the day of the wedding, which was exactly one month away.

Rose had many connections in the city due to her duties as an informal page and frequent trips to the marketplace. It wasn't going to be too difficult to formulate a plan and put the pieces in place. Distractions could be set up, people could be hired, provisions could be purchased that would see Rey along to the next town. Rey provided her with more than enough coin to get the work done.

The only problem was actually obtaining a getaway carriage. Arguably the most important part. The only carriages that would be at the wedding would be for the couple and the ones that the more important guests arrived in. The palace stables were on the other side of the fields where the ceremony was to take place. She would never make it that far with a stolen carriage.

It had been a few days since they discussed the plan, and Rose was frustrated. No one she knew owned a carriage, let alone would spare it if they did.

Rose descended the parapets and took the wide staircase down and away from the palace. An idea had suddenly struck, and she needed to get to the border of Naboo  _ fast _ .

She convinced the stablemaster that she had been given leave for an errand, and required a fathier for her troubles. It took some work confusing and disarming the man before she could get him to agree, but she managed. 

The borders were always the scene of attacks, but they were also the site of the only roads in and out of Naboo. Roads that rich nobles took to flee the capitol for anywhere but here. Nobles who took carriages, and oftentimes, did not see their journeys' ends, leaving behind carriages a few repairs short of working order.

It was grim business, but Rose knew no other options outside of stealing a carriage from the dead. And though she could verbally disarm people, she was no master of stealth or maneuvers and could not take one from a local noble. 

She did, however, know how to fix things. It was an odd bit of her nature, but came in handy so many times. She could fix anything from pocket watches to jewelry boxes... to carriages.

If any had been abandoned, even broken, she could repair it and bring it back to the palace. She could hide it far off in the fields beyond the palace gardens, until the day of the wedding.

Just as Rose was nearing the last crossroads before the border, a loud blast emerged some distance ahead. Smoke rose from below the dip in the road, and flames began licking the sky. Before she could so much as react, her fathier whinnied and reared up, and the small girl was thrown off and onto her back. She pushed herself onto her elbows and watched the beast run off into the forest.

So, she thought. Tatooine was likely launching another attack maybe a couple hundred feet away, and she had no means of escape. Was this how she was going to die? Was her family truly this cursed?

The sound of rapidly clomping hooves roused her from her thoughts, and she leapt to her feet. They were coming. She broke into a sprint, as fast as her legs could carry her and her skirts would allow. Pain already seared in her legs from the long fathierback ride, and she groaned as the run took its toll.

The beating of hooves came faster until she could hear the clatter of a carriage behind it. She glanced back, and gaped. Rose slowed to a jog as the carriage pulled up beside her.

In it was none other than the ginger-haired man to whom Rey was betrothed, Armitage Hux. Rose had only met him a few times, and they had hardly exchanged greetings, but she would recognize that face anywhere.

He looked at her with equal amounts of confusion and bewilderment. Then he beckoned a gloved hand. “What are you doing? Climb in!”

She glanced back and forth at the carriage, and him. It was a brougham. Hux and the driver already occupied two spaces in it. It was certainly not meant for more.

“H-how am I gonna fit in there?” She called out weakly.

Hux furrowed his brows, pulling a face. Then he shook his head and extended his arm further. “The First Order is attacking us and you are worried about seating arrangements? Just get in, girl!”

Her jaw clenched. Nobody called her girl. She ran towards his hand and let him pull her onboard, if only so she could let him feel her glare up close.

And up close she was. The seat was wide, but the driver was a portly man and Rose had to press herself firmly up against Armitage to keep from falling out the open-air carriage. She felt heat creeping up her neck to her face, which was just inches from his.

“You. Why are you helping me?” She squinted her eyes suspiciously up at him.

He gave her a disgusted glare, and scoffed. “I don't know what you believe about me, girl, but I am not the villain you think me to be.”

She felt her lip twitch in anger. “Stop. Calling. Me. Girl,” Rose hissed.

Armitage maintained his glare at her, but he visibly swallowed. “Fine then. Handmaiden of Lady Rey, what shall I call you, then?”

Rose felt her shoulders untense. She didn't think he'd remembered her. She had assumed he was just... being a weird hero to a weird girl running alongside the dusty road in a posh smock.

“Rose. Please call me Rose, Sir Hux.” She didn't intend to, but she spoke almost too quietly for him to hear. Their proximity, however, helped.

His gaze was relentless, and she was growing uncomfortable at having his green eyes boring into her own. But they weren't as hard as before.

Finally he turned his eyes toward the road ahead. “Rose, then. Rose, what are you doing out here in the borderlands? Why aren't you attending to Lady Rey?”

Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “I  _ was  _ actually attending to her needs, Sir. I was on an errand.”

He threw a wide-eyed look her way, before turning back to the road and pointing something out to the driver. “Why in the name of the Maker would she send you  _ here _ ? Did she not wish you to return?”

“She doesn't exactly know where I am, Sir Hux.”

“You may drop the formality, Rose. If you have no title, I shan't wish you to call me by mine.”

Her blush was unstoppable now. Noblemen did not act this way. Noblemen  _ never  _ acted this way, nor did they let lowly women call them by anything but their official titles.  _ Noblemen did not act this way _ .

“What shall I call you then?”

“Hux is fine. Now,” he settled back against the cushion and returned to looking upon her. “What has brought you here?”

“I'm afraid I can't tell you.”

“I gave you permission to drop formalities, but I will not allow you to withhold information from me. Speak, Rose.”

“It concerns Lady Rey's and your own engagement.”

Hux paled. “Continue.”

“Please... Don't make me divulge her secrets, Hux.”

“I promise you, you couldn't tell me a thing that would rouse my anger towards the Lady.” He swallowed again. “I shall tell you something that will likely alleviate your doubts and make you feel more inclined to speak freely.”

Out of nowhere, the driver shouted, “Prepare yourselves! 'Ere's a large 'ole in the road!”

“Wha--” Rose turned to look.

“I'm going to smuggle her out of Naboo on the day of our wedding.”

All at once. Everything was so fast. Rose felt herself bounce off the seat and falling through the opening of the carriage, just as Hux's revelation hit her.

Strong hands dug deeply into her forearms, and Hux strained his back pulling Rose back into her seat. The two gasped and puffed, and then looked up at one another.

They were so much closer than before, Rose could smell him–a sweet mixture of sweat and spiced wine. Hux's mouth trembled slightly, and his eyes flitted from her eyes to her lips.

Something was pressing down upon Rose's hand. She forced herself to break contact with him and look downward. His gloved hand was clamped tightly upon her own. He hadn't yet broken his grip upon her after rescuing her.

Hux noticed her gaze, and flushed as he retracted his hand. The two cleared throats almost simultaneously as they readjusted their seating in the cab and faced forward.

“Thank you for saving me, Hux” Rose mumbled.

“Think nothing of it, Rose,” Hux muttered.

  
  


When they reached the capitol after a long drive in silence, Hux insisted Rose join him for tea in his courtyard. She wasn't sure how to react, but she knew she couldn't very well refuse. Plus, she had so many questions for him.

Rose took a deep sip, and began. “Lady Rey and I are planning the exact same thing as you.”

He stirred honey into his wooden mug, but kept stirring out of distraction. “I'm sorry, Rose, you what?”

“Lady Rey wishes not to marry. Not you, nor anyone. She needs to... leave.”

“Leave Naboo?” He asked, quizzically, and took a measured sip.

“Yes.”

“I'm most inclined to agree," he said nonchalantly as he took another sip. 

“And just why are you so inclined to help her flee?”

He set his mug down and pushed it aside, folding his hands together on the table. “It isn't safe for her to be here.”

Rose heard herself laugh. This was getting sillier by the moment. “Now I know you're lying to me. The capitol isn't yet a target in the war.”

He leaned forward, his gaze stern and somewhat frustrated. “This isn't a matter of war, Rose. She is in a personal means of danger.”

“From you?” Rose smirked.

“This isn't a laughing matter, I--” he shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. Rose had to suppress a chuckle--it was almost cute how vexed he could get. 

His hands gently smacked the table. “Look, she is this Empire's only hope. And,” his eyes darted all around him before he continued, “the person closest to her is seeking to snuff it out.”

Closest to her? Aside from herself and Kaydel, that would mean...

“The Emperor is planning to murder her?”

“Not so loud!” He hissed, but nodded. “Yes. He believes her to be a threat to his power.”

Rose fell back in her seat. Her mug of tea was also now neglected. “How do you know all of this? You're not just a nobleman, are you?” Her voice was soft and tinged with confusion.

He stared at her for a long moment, considering her. Then he sighed as if in surrender. “No. I am a spy. I work for the Emperor... and I used to work for the First Order's Knights of Ren. I am trying to put an end to this war.”

Rose just gaped at him. No words. She had no words.

“Now, I won't tell you any more. I've already put you at risk. What we need to do now is work on a plan to escort the young Lady out of this capitol. No matter what becomes of the Empire,  _ she  _ must survive to inherit the throne. It is also possible that she may be the one to  _ take  _ it from him. That is a plan for another day, however.”

“I've set some things in motion already,” Rose said, and gave an in-depth report of everything she had set up.

“All that's missing is a carriage.” Hux noted, and finished his tea with a smile.

Rose felt herself smiling back. “I think we can pull this off, with your resources.”

“Indeed. I have another carriage. It's in disrepair, but can be fixed up in time for the ceremony.”

“I can fix it!” Rose blurted out. She put a hand over her lips almost immediately. 

Hux was fascinated by this strange girl. Despite the fact that she wasn't a noblewoman at all. No, definitely not – she was far too interesting.

“I have my own, capable repairman.”

“I understand, Hux, but I need to do this. I mean, I want to. I want to have a role in this. Please, you can trust me with your carriage!” She pleaded, and it was a strange and foreign thing for her. “If you find yourself dissatisfied, you can always call in your personal repairman!”

“No, no... I shall let you do this. Whenever you have free time, please make yourself available. Inform your lady if you must, but free yourself and send me a message so I may have my cabman fetch you.”

She pouted in thought. “What sort of message? I only know one cipher, and I don't think there's enough time to teach it to you.”

He shook his head. “Use a carrier bird and send me a small slip of paper with...” His brows knitted together as he became lost in thought.

Rose couldn't think of anything either. Nothing that couldn't be intercepted and deciphered.

She finally rose from her chair, placing her cloth napkin gently on the table before her. She had duties to return to. She bowed gently to the nobleman. “Thank you for your time, and… for trusting me with all this information. I’ll think of some signal we can use and will send it by bird, don’t worry. You will receive it before nightfall.”

After a few more words of thanks for his hospitality, she set off for the palace. She had to explain to the stableman how she’d lost a fathier, and then return to Rey.

Rey couldn’t know Hux’s involvement. They were on thin ice as it was, just writing to each other about their plans. It would put Rey in more danger if she knew just the extent of this scheme. Not to mention how much it could endanger Sir Hux...

  
  
  


That night, after helping Rey into what Rose thought was the dumbest and most complicated ball gown that existed--there was some highfalutin gala that evening--Rose set out for the tower where the carrier birds were kept.

She was also invited to the ball, and Rey had even done her up in colorful paints to encourage her to join her, but Rose felt it was too much. And definitely not her kind of company. But it was nice to feel all made up for once.

Her eyes widened as an idea struck. Rose looked down at the little white strip of paper she held in her hands, and flushed.

It definitely wouldn’t be interpreted as the communique of spies or ne’er-do-wells.

Yet...it was so embarrassing.

But...she kind of wanted to do it. Maybe just for fun, or to see how he’d react the next time they met.

Rose didn’t quite know what she was doing anymore. She was involved in a scheme so far beyond anything she had ever dreamt of, and working alongside one of the highest nobleman in Naboo. So it was fitting that this also made just as little sense as everything else.

She brought the slip of paper to her ruby red lips, and kissed it.


	6. War Flashbacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben, passed out from the sheer power of Rey's healing magic, has some nightmares about how he came to wind up in this mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So more exposition. I apologize for how I've been just dropping the exposition like weights, but I don't intend this to be a long story and I wanted to communicate the backstories to you as soon as possible. 
> 
> What I'm posting was meant to be posted as part of a longer chapter, where he wakes up and deals with the aftermath of Rey healing him, but since I haven't updated in so long, I felt I owed it to my readers to post some of what I have!

Ben had felt it, and it was near indescribable. It was beyond any magic he could comprehend, yet he knew it was magic in its purest form. Untainted by human hands or evil minds. Raw energy full of… emotion. Was it…? No.

It didn’t have to be love. The bond was described in now-lost fairy tales as something akin to soulmates, but transcending that idea into the realm of life energy and magic itself. Something that the universe itself deemed was a very fact of life, that two people were meant to coexist in the same plane, at the same time.

But it could be a bond of camaraderie, close friendship. Brotherhood, alliance. Who was he to kid himself that it was… that he felt love? That she felt it?

He felt her life energy pouring into his very soul, and felt her hand hovering just inches from him. He wanted to reach out-- reach out with human fingers-- and take her hand in his. She was risking everything to save his life. A beast.

Somehow, he didn’t care if it would happen to break his curse, he just didn’t want her doing this. Using this cursed magic, this cursed dyad magic, to save him.

But he felt it. For once, her energy was clear to him. For once he could see her as she existed in life energy. And it was vibrant, and beautiful, and everything he knew it would be. It was fiery and frantic like her, and also… it was full of love. He knew this. He had felt it himself, beginning to take hold recently. He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt himself reaching out more and more for her.

He didn’t have any right to feel this way. He didn’t have any right to let himself love, like a person would. Ben least of all felt that the girl whose life he’d upended was deserving of the misery of his love. His life had been such misery and pain for so long, he didn’t know what it meant to live a life of normalcy, and carefree happiness. He was so bogged down by his demons that even if the Emperor was taken down, he didn’t know if he could live on with any sense of self left within him.

What did his life even mean anymore? If he couldn’t even answer that, he didn’t deserve to have her by his side. To ruin her life by dragging her down with him.

So whatever these feelings were, he had to stifle them. If, somehow, the curse was lifting, he couldn’t let these feelings grow. 

But the Dyad would be fully awakened. If he was beginning to feel her life energy, still as a beast, then she would be able to feel his. The prophecy was fulfilling itself. She would know him, know his thoughts, know his energy. He couldn’t lie to her, especially if the curse was broken. Could he? 

So many thoughts raced in his mind, until the sensation of her warming healing magic overwhelmed him entirely, and he lost consciousness.

* * *

Captain Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren marched into the open market of the capital of Naboo, but a long stroll from the palace itself. He wasn’t here to see the sights, however. He had finally gotten a tip.

Ben Solo, the man behind the title, had known for long now that something was amiss with this war. His orders were constantly changing, and the casualties were increasingly random. One of his knights had just recently blown up a joint Tatooinian-Naboo business and before Ben could reprimand him, his officer told him it was of no consequence. Things like this had been happening more and more frequently-- it was as if all that he had been doing in this war was clearing out the land for new settlements. It didn’t matter who died.

The war was said to have started because Tatooine refused to be fully absorbed into a Kingdom of Naboo, and wanted to retain their full freedoms and titles, but the reasons varied depending upon who was asked. Some would say it was started because the Tatooinians were cursed after slaying the Jedi dragons, and sought revenge on Naboo, who had demanded their full aid in the slaughter. Others would proclaim it was nothing more than an economic affair: both sides had something the other wanted, some natural resource they weren’t willing to give up.

Ben Solo felt the latter theory was correct, but he knew it ran much deeper than simple minerals and crops.

He rapped on the thick wooden door before him, and resumed his poised stance as he heard footsteps approach. He nodded back at his knights. They nodded in turn.

As the nearby merchants packed up their stalls for the day, and headed for their adjoining homes, the door finally swung open to reveal the merchant who had closed shop early that day. He was pale and sallow, and looked incredibly nervous.

He pulled the door wide open upon seeing his callers, and beckoned them in. Or so Ben thought.

“Ah, if you don’t mind, Captain, I would very much prefer your soldiers to stay outside.” He smiled, but his cold eyes were unchanging.

Ben furrowed his brow and gestured at the men behind him. They were all respectable, no matter what manners they may have lost in the long years of lawless war. “Surely they’re just as equal company as I am?”

The man nodded slowly, still smiling. “Oh of course, I just…” He lowered his voice. “I don’t think this information should be trusted to everyone.”

Ben understood that. If this man’s word was good, it could be compromising in the wrong hands. It was compromising in his hands, to be fair, but he would use it for all the reasons he believed right. Still, he didn’t feel quite comfortable being alone with this character. He was shady and mysterious, and how a rich nobleman, son of a merchant, would know this kind of information was perplexing in the least.

The two sat down to tea, and when all manners of ceremony were completed, the man wasted no time divulging his information.

It was a grand, corrupt scheme. The Emperor was behind everything, and it was all a power grab for magic. Even the dragons died so that this man may be the most powerful. It was sickening.

Ben thought of all the people who had died at his sword. They really were just… people in the way of a land grab. He swallowed down the bile that forced its way up, then tried to drown the taste with tea. It wasn’t helping.

He had spent the last five years on a gory crusade for one man’s vainglorious attempt at being the supreme ruler of the land with the use of… magic.

How he hated himself for ever using it, now. How he hated himself for so many things, but that damnable magic… That magic was such a temptation. It was going to be mankind’s ruination one day, if men like Emperor Palpatine continued to exist. And Ben knew that he wouldn’t be the last man to see his glory in the energy of all living things.

Ben finished his tea, and looked up at the nobleman. He knew his face must betray the feelings of doubt, misery and uncertainty he now felt, but he pushed through it.

“Just to be absolutely certain… the Emperor has no plans to end the war until Tatooine has claimed a designated lot of land?”

“That is correct.”

“All for a book.”

The man’s lip curled, and he chuckled. He stood up, and strode the length of the room. He gently peeled a leather tome from the case on the wall, and tossed it at Ben.

Ben barely caught it in time. He turned it around. Jedi Magic, Sith Magic: The Dragons.

He furrowed his brows. “Sith magic? It is real?” His turn to chuckle. “I’ve only heard of it in stories.”

“Oh, yes. An ancient form of magic just as powerful, if not moreso, than the Jedi magic. Only rivaled by the Jedi magic because of the dragons. But, well, we all know what happened to them.”

“What’s this got to do with what Palpatine wants? The Jedi texts?”

“All the magic is connected, as I’m sure you know. If one knows both the Sith magic and the Jedi magic, then their powers know no bounds. However, most Jedi magic died with the dragons.”

“...But the dragons had scribes…” It actually made sense. Kriff, this felt so insane and horrible.

“Yes they did, and they wisely had everything they knew written down in these ancient tomes, which they left in the care of their only ally, who was a Tatooinian by that point. When he passed, it found its way into the royal palace, and remains there as one of the nation’s treasures.”

“And Palpatine just assumes he can wield this magic if he reads it.”

The man blanched. Ben in turn felt his stomach lurch at his reaction.

“You don’t know what he is capable of. I’ve seen things that I’ve seen no other magic user do before. I have no doubt he will fulfill his every whim if he so much as gets his hands upon these texts.”

The man spoke with such quiet urgency, it was as if he had not a moment to lose before the Emperor were to just burst in on them.

“So what do you expect me to do with this knowledge? I came here with the understanding that I would gain a valuable tip that could turn the tide of the war.” Ben tossed the book onto the chair he’d been sitting in. “Shall I just confront the man? Shall I destroy the texts?”

“Don’t dare get near the man. But for kriff’s sake, do what you can to keep the soldiers from claiming more Naboo land. And yes, try to find the texts. You yourself...I don’t believe you would be able to get close enough to destroy them, but if you can report their location to me--”

“I get it,” Ben rolled his eyes and made his way to the door. “You have diplomatic clout. So, how shall I communicate to you when I have news on their whereabouts?”

The man reached the door, and rested his hand on the locks. “I shall summon you again, like I did today. A message will...make its way to you.”

Ben nodded. Suddenly, his role in this war became a lot more complicated. He was a double agent of sorts. He would have to be, if he had any hope of learning the whereabouts of these godforsaken magical books.

“I thank you for your help, Sir Hux.”

The man’s smiling mouth quivered as he swung the door open. Ben saw something akin to fright on his face before the smug arrogance settled back in.

Ben took one step outside, and the door slammed behind him. He took one look at his men. They surrounded him, weapons readied and aimed at him.

* * *

He was marched across what little parts of town separated the marketplace from the palace, and was dragged up the many stone stairs to the towering double doors. The palace guards let the Knights of Ren and their captive Captain in without so much as a nod.

Ben hadn’t spoken a word since he’d realized the treachery, but his anger was reaching a boiling point. He didn’t know how he could survive this, if he could, with his temper so ready to burst and flare.

Shiny, untarnished marbled floors burned his knees beneath him as his former comrades dragged him closer to what must surely be the Emperor’s reception hall, or throne room.

Solace came with an echoing gasp from the far reaches of the western corridor. Ben and all of his men turned to look.

A juvenile stood at the top of the stairs leading to the upper western hall. She was but a few long strides away. Her hand clasped against her mouth, as if she realized she was probably not supposed to be privy to the seizure of this prisoner.

The girl’s deep hazel eyes bore into Ben’s, and something inside him, in his life energy, awakened. He was in too much pain to react or say something, but he saw her eyes go wide. He thought she felt it, too. Some strange magic.

She didn’t move an inch as the Emperor came striding forward, standing still in his presence. The Knights dropped Ben, and he fell over as the decrepit ruler slowly closed the gap.

Ben glared up at him, at his faintly yellow eyes and mocking smile. 

This was it, then.

“Ben Solo. Or, rather, Kylo Ren. You’ve helped me a great deal.”

Suddenly, magic constrained him by the arms and legs, and Ben could no longer struggle. He was bound to the floor, on one knee before this false Emperor.

“Unfortunately, your curiosity has damned you. You might have become a hero of this war--”

“There is no war! Just a feeble puppeteer wasting lives for the folly of magic!” Ben was seething. Magic was something he grew up loving. His parents hadn’t exactly encouraged him to study it, but he sought it out. He loved its potential and dreamed of someday changing the world with it.

He couldn’t hate it any more than he did this instant. The very thing he loved betrayed him in the end. How trite, he thought. He served five years in a war and he was going to die in a one-sided match against a man probably four times his age.

Emperor Palpatine chuckled most carelessly. Ben made no impact on him or his demeanor. He was a slight, an error in his plans to be erased and redrawn. Ben held no significance to this man. His protestations fell upon deaf ears.

“My boy, you have no idea the kind of power that awaits me in that godforsaken no man’s land. Only I can comprehend those tomes, and when I finally set my eyes upon them, I shall forever be the unquestioned keeper of the Jedi and Sith powers. Everyone shall know what it means to use magic, and have it used upon.”

His eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. “Perhaps I should educate you on just how effective magic can be, when in the right hands. You’re certainly a waste of the life energy’s manipulations and magics.”

Ben didn’t know what to expect, but he was unable to look away. The old sorcerer kept him locked in place, including Ben’s face glued to his. His body shuddered as it continued to fight against the invisible constraints, and sweat began to roll down his brows and hairline. 

He blinked the droplets out of his lashes, and hardened his eyes as the Emperor raised his arm as blue and red tendrils seeped out of it, snaking around like vines, until they formed a ball, spinning just within reach of his fingers. A blending of red and blue magic.

The Emperor recited some strange language, opened his palm wide, and Ben felt the hot electricity of power upon him. He screamed in pain as his body contorted.

He felt himself… growing. Palpatine laughed below. “This is a curse you will never, ever be able to break, for no one shall ever go near you. My secrets will die with us both.”

Ben stumbled outside the palace, and realized he could fly. He felt himself tumble to the valley below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in addition to this update, expect another not too far off! Rose and Hux will pick up soon as well, but I have no planned point for that side chapter yet. I definitely have plans *for* them, though. >;)
> 
> Please enjoy, and let me know what you think!


	7. Set Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dyad has rescued Ben, but he's still angsty and self-loathing. Luckily, Rey has no patience for bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished the chapter a lot quicker than I thought! So, enjoy a double update!

His eyes shot open, and he gasped for air.

He could feel it as soon as he was conscious, but he could not believe it. It couldn’t be as simple as that…

Ben spent many months translating the curse. The words Palpatine struck upon him so long ago. It was an abomination, a Sith curse fused with Jedi enchantments. It was a transformation curse and it kept him from communicating its effects to anyone lest he suffer pain and eventual death.

It could only be broken by finding one’s other half of a dyad, and knowing their love.

Ben lay still, terrified to move. He… he kind of knew he was human again, he could tell something wasn’t right with his body. For one thing, he was laying on his back. That was an impossibility with dragons.

But he was terrified to remember what it felt like. 

He was terrified to see her. She had broken the curse. She had some semblance of love for him. She was a fool.

Palpatine must have known all along that Rey was his soulmate in the dyad. That young woman who had watched him become a monster.

He wondered if Palpatine had wiped her memory of that day, and if the wedding to Hux were a two-pronged operation: a political power move, and insurance that Rey wouldn’t, for any reason or by any means, find Ben.

It was a stretch, but that man had a lot to lose should Ben spill his secrets. He probably would do anything to secure all loose ends.

So now that she wound up captured by him, Ben mulled, Palpatine was sending assassins in search of her to prevent the curse from being broken.

Ben tentatively raised an arm. He clenched and unclenched his hand, and let it fall back to his side. He exhaled slowly. It was already too late, he supposed. The curse was broken. Did he have any viable reason to send her away?

Yes. He could turn her out, force her to leave him, and send her on a path to a place even Palpatine’s eyes in the life energy couldn’t find. Ben knew he was only looking for an excuse not to.

He slowly rose to his feet, wobbling and nearly falling several times before he stood upon two legs for the first time in half a decade.

This was probably the part where he was supposed to laugh and cheer, and marvel at the wondrousness that was his curse finally being broken, and being a man again.

Yet Ben already went through it in his mind: there was nothing left for him. He had spent his last ten years fighting a purposeless war, then killing his own family and self-exiling.

He didn’t think he knew happiness anymore. There was definitely something warm that tugged at him in her life energy, but…

He walked slowly, unsteady as a baby animal on its feet for the first time. The pool of water was just ahead.

Ben stuck a hand in the dark, cold water, and splashed his face with it. He laughed a little, and sighed. Perhaps he missed a lot more than he realized. Even little things like skin, and how good it felt to stimulate it.

Rey groaned. Ben whirled around and saw her splayed across the cave floor nearby.

He also saw, for the first time, that he was completely naked. He first made a mad dash for the trunk, pulling on with some sorrow his father’s old garments, and then dashed to her side.

He ran his hand across her forehead, checking for fever. Nothing there but the delicate skin of her face against his fingertips. He swallowed, and lifted her up by her arms, then used one arm to support her back, while the other busied itself checking her scalp. One bump on the lower right side of her head, probably from her collapse last night.

He hesitantly snaked his arm underneath her knees, and pulled her close to him. Even though he was a human again, she was still so, so small. Fragile she wasn’t, but her body couldn’t take this constant abuse that being near him brought upon her.

Ben inhaled, and lifted her up. He was assaulted with her delicate smells of flowers, grass and sweat. He could smell things on an exponential scale as a dragon, but here, now, as a human, it was so very different. Everything was affecting him so differently now. It was as if not just his body but his heart itself had been bound by a curse for so many years, and he was now free to feel these things that made his pulse race.

His heart pounded as he lay her down upon her makeshift bed. His lips parted and a gasp slowly escaped as he saw her eyes fluttering open. His own eyes were drooping from the stupor he found himself in.

He tried not to let his baser instincts get the best of him in this moment, which never had been a problem. But that wasn’t it. It was so much more than lust could ever be.

Ben wanted to stroke her hair, and kiss her forehead as she stirred awake. To hold her close to him, and feel relief knowing she was safely wrapped in his arms. To press his cheek against hers, tell her how grateful he was for her. To whisper his admissions of love as he kissed her from neck to chest.

He remembered all of his resolve from before, all the things he had convinced himself of. He was right to want these things, but he could never let it happen.

Rey’s eyes widened momentarily, and she reached up to touch his jaw with a smile. “Would you come closer? You’re so kriffing tall.”

Unaware of himself anymore, he obeyed, and leaned into her caress. His eyes closed, and he put his hand on top of hers. “Thank you, Rey,” was all he could think of, and it came out as a low growl.

Rey marveled in his human form. She wasn’t surprised he was human again, she had felt something strange and powerful the night before, and knew she had fulfilled her promise to him.

It was more that she was amazed at what he looked like. She felt flush as she took in how tall and well-built he was, how his hair draped across his face in a manner that accentuated perfectly just how moody he could be. She was taken in by his quivering, full lips, large, rough hands, and his dark eyes that felt so penetrating and invasive.

She fell in love with a beast of a beautiful man. Her eyes roamed over him, but she felt no shame. Certainly no shame when she pulled him closer with her other arm, and ran a hand through his hair. Rey was completely shame-free as she ran the back of her hand against his cheek, smiling at him as she elicited a smile from him.

He suddenly removed her hands from his face, and stood up. “I… You can’t.”

Rey felt all the warm bliss evaporate into the cold air around, getting colder still now. She sat up too fast, and clutched her head as she felt it grow light.

“Come again?” Rey staggered and forced herself until she finally was standing, facing him from several paces away. Anger rose in her. “I broke the curse, and…” And we can be together now. And I love you. And you’re the man I’ve literally been dreaming about for years. And you’re with me whether you like it or not.

“And now you’re in danger.”

“Palpatine?” He didn’t say anything. “If it’s my grandfather, I don’t care. We can stop him!”

“You’re not ready--” 

“I’ll get ready!”

“He’s trying to kill you because we’re supposed to be together.”

Rey felt her heart drop. “Come again?” Softer, now.

“Your...feelings broke the curse. You and I are apart of a life energy dyad. He knows this, he knows you’re the only reason I could be-- and am-- human again. He cursed me to keep me quiet.”

“I don’t care. We can stand against him. If we’re destined by life energy, we must certainly be more powerful together then?”

Ben gave a short nod.

“Fine then. I’m not leaving you. Didn’t you hear me last night?” She was suddenly too shy to repeat herself. It was somehow difficult to tell the real version of this man how she felt.

Receiving no answer, she crossed the cave to him, but he had already left. His large strides carried him to the tree where so much had happened between them.

She jogged out into the sunshine, and grabbed his arm. He didn’t move, he didn’t even look back at her. 

“I said, didn’t you hear me last night?” Her voice was angry but her eyes filled with tears.

Honestly? She didn’t really know what love was. She had never had the luxury of getting that close to anyone. She had kissed a boy, but love was out of her domain.

Naturally the doomed princess was fated to fall for the knight who only cared about his responsibility to keep her safe. Her life was so textbook it drove her mad. Not even in love could she rebel enough to break the mold. Not even falling in love with a dragon/man was enough to force herself out of the tragic fairy tale her life was.

“I love you, Ben.” She heard her voice choke, and cursed herself for letting her emotions run so high. She wanted to sound defiant, and make him realize how serious she was. She didn’t think tears would move him.

She ran in front of him. His eyes were sorrowful, somehow, as they met hers. “You can’t possibly love me. How long have we even known each other? You don’t even know me.” 

Rey narrowed her eyes. “I know you’re a coward, who doesn’t think he deserves anything because of the mistakes he’s made.” 

His jaw clenched, but he remained unmoving.

“I know you’re caring, and selfless, and saved me when I needed it. I know you like to fight and spar, especially in the ways your father taught you. I know you’re amazing with magic, even though you hate it. I know my grandfather is more terrified of you than anyone besides me, and I know you want to depose him for all the reasons I do. I know you only think of others, and don’t let yourself want for anything. I know you, I love you, and I’m not leaving, so you’re just going to have to deal with this properly! So don’t you dare to tell me I don’t know who you are.”

She held up a hand to slap him, and he grabbed it so quickly, bringing it softly to his cheek. Ben leaned down, tilting her chin up gently, and brushed his lips against hers. He eased into their kiss, tentatively, as if testing something. Rey wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but she wanted more. She found her hands wandering, holding his wavy hair and burrowing into his chest beneath his tunic, reveling in the simple feeling of being able to let her hand roam where it pleased.

She felt him pull back, and he breathed deeply. “You don’t hate me for ruining your palatial life, Lady Rey?” It was equal parts sarcastic and concerned. It was the question. He was looking for the go-ahead.

“You set me free, Sir Ben Solo,” she breathed as she pulled him back in, fitting her lips across his as best she could. They were just so large, and full… she found herself planting a trail.

He responded by sliding a hand against the small of her back, and pushing her into him. She moaned as she felt all of him pressing into her, closed in on her, stimulating her. Rey felt something hard between his legs and gasped into his mouth when she realized what was going on below. As if he understood, he broke the kiss for a moment, running his hand across her hair, fixing it gently. For just a moment, however, as he was unable to keep himself away from her skin for too long. She breathed deeply into his neck, her heart racing at all of these new experiences, as he rained delicate pecks along her own neck.

Her heart continuing to race, his breath becoming unstoppably ragged, they devoured each meeting of the lips in passionate bites and pulls. His lips were gentle but absolutely devouring her. She felt her lips growing fiery and swollen against his fierce kisses.

All at once their hands bumped. Their eyes opened fully and met, and they simultaneously looked downward. Rey had a hand curled around the hem of her smock top, and Ben was mid-reach for his trousers.

Rey’s face had to be absolutely contorted with humiliation, excitement and glee as she chuckled. It didn’t help that Ben was smiling down at her, the warmest, gentlest smile she’d seen. 

“I think--”

“We should--”

They took a step back and made sounds of agreement. Though Rey really could have continued until the sun set upon them, she was too overwhelmed to let this be the day that she experienced… everything, all at once. 

This had been her first real kiss… or, kisses, and she was absolutely breathless and dizzy, and felt like she might actually fall over. She couldn’t fathom what… that would do to her.

‘That’. Gods she was still such a child. Maybe if she had a resting pulse at the moment, she could actually think the word, but every little thing in this moment was a sensation wracking her body and mind. 

“We should train. You know, if we ever um…” 

“Want to end the war?”

“Yes, exactly. Your grandfather.”

Neither of them seemed to have a fully-functioning brain, so they decided to meet by the tree when the sun descended upon the tallest peak of the mountains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm sorry if that read like an absolute disaster, I haven't written romance before. *womp womp* _Please_ feel free to leave your harshest judgments and truest advice in the comments.


End file.
